


The Upington Puzzle

by DisaLanglois



Series: Love and Rockets [2]
Category: Strike Back
Genre: Action/Adventure, Africa, Africa doesn't get enough love in fandom, British Military, Closeted Character, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Military, Original Character(s), Slow Build, South Africa, Weapons of Mass Destruction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 01:06:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 70,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisaLanglois/pseuds/DisaLanglois
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conrad Knox has four 80's-vintage nuclear weapons ... and now he has four short-range ballistic missiles to put them in.<br/>Section Twenty's lead has taken Scott and Stonebridge north to the town of Upington to find those missiles.  But things have changed between them, and Stonebridge is about to learn that 'Special Forces' means more than just tactics in Scott's book.<br/>Plot, action, bromance, and a bit of slash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

## MONDAY MORNING

## UPINGTON, NORTHERN CAPE.

* * *

 

He knows where he is.  He is in the supermarket where he packs shelves to help his mom with the bills.  It’s not much of a job, but Scrooge McDuck’s not much of an employer, and this sure ain’t much of a supermarket. 

Something is wrong.  The store is locked up and dark.  The ceiling is black, and the end of the aisle is an abyss.  He has to get out before the old man locks him in.  If he can’t get out, he can’t go home.  He'll be trapped.    

He hears a voice, calling from from the till.  It’s Scrooge’s voice.  “Damien!”

“Wait for me!” he shouts, and turns the corner by the milk fridge to bolt down the tinned-goods aisle.  Tin labels are flashing by him, in Malayalam and Chinese, Arabic and Korean: all the languages he’s seen in his long odyssey since Operation Iraqi Freedom. He gets to the end of the row, and hurtles around the batteries and light-bulbs.  

The till is gone.  He’s back at the milk fridge.  He's trapped.  He can't get out.  

“Wait for me!” he calls, frightened suddenly. 

“Scott!” 

Scott’s eyes flashed open, into bright daylight.  “What?” he said, confused. 

“Zero,” Michael Stonebridge said, cryptically, from the driver’s seat. 

Scott was lying on his side, scrunched up in the back seat of the Landcruiser, with his head against the armrest.  The car’s engine was still throbbing around him. He sat up.  “Ugh,” he grunted in sudden pain.  “Fuck.”  His neck had gone into a sharp crick, sleeping at that funny angle.  Sitting up was revolutionary, as far as his SCM muscles were concerned, and they twanged painfully in protest. 

Mikey’s fingers tapped out the rhythm of reveille on the steering wheel, which was just adding insult to injury as far as Scott was concerned. 

“Fuck,” he said again, and dug at the knots in his neck with one hand.  He scooted forward on the seat, so that he could brace an elbow on each front seat and see over the dash. The view in the windshield was bright with dawn.  They’d driven through the night, taking turns to crash on the back seat, and now here they were.  At this hour, they had the road to themselves.

His earbud was in the compartment in the central pillar.  He took it out and shoved it in his ear.  His other hand continued to knead his neck.  It would loosen in a minute or two, he just had to bash it into surrender first.  _Welcome to your thirties, Mr Scott._

Sinclair’s voice spoke in his ear.  “ _Scott?_ ”

He reached for his radio through his shirt.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I’m awake.”

“We’re approaching Upington, according the GPS,” Michael said, glaring through the window as if the morning sun had offended him. 

“ _Copy that_ ,” Sinclair said. 

Scott opened his canteen, and drank, watching the scenery go by.  His teeth were coated in furry glue, but the water was cool and sweet, and his body just soaked it up as if he was a potted plant. 

Everything had changed overnight.  The road was wide and straight, and the shoulder on either side was a broad strip of gravel.  The road surface was crap, hammering at the car’s suspension.  The bare landscape streaking by was a dusky colour, and flat.  The soil was stubbled with exhausted little knobs of olive-green vegetation, as if growing a couple of inches was as much as it could manage.  It looked dry, and inhospitable, and soul-breakingly empty. 

The turn signal started ticking – for whose benefit he didn’t know – and the car braked hard and slewed onto the shoulder. 

“What’s up?”

“I’m not your chauffeur, Princess,” Michael said.  The tyres grumbled on the gravel, and the car stopped.  “Get in the front.” Michael was in SSMM: Standard Stonebridge Morning Mood.  Never a happy-chappie without his morning coffee, or his morning run. 

Scott sighed, and popped the door.  “Always the nitpicker,” he complained, getting out and slapping the door shut behind him. 

The morning air smelled spicy with herbs, and the early morning air chilled the last of his sleepiness away.  He took a large mouthful of water, and swirled it around his teeth, taking his time, and using the moment to appreciate the landscape.  Finally he spat the water out on the gravel, opened the front passenger door, and climbed in. 

“Right-o.  Drive on, Macduff,” he told Stonehenge, dropping back into the seat.  He brought one foot up against the car’s side. 

He heard the sigh as Michael pulled back into the road. 

“Where’s the river?”  Scott asked. 

Michael pointed out of the driver’s side window to a strip of green on the horizon.

“Can’t see it,” Scott complained.

“Would you like me to ask them to move it closer for you?”

The dry desert started to sprout the occasional cluster of buildings, and the vegetation become greener and taller.  The river had brought life to this strip of the Kalahari. Water brought the chance to coax agriculture and something of an economy out of the desert.  The buildings seemed like they were hunkered down under the heat, each set inside its own block of sand.

They drove into Upington itself, and the plots became smaller, and the buildings larger.  The sidewalks were wide, and the streets seemed open, and free to the huge bowl of the sky.  Stores; a church here; a school there; commercial signage, restaurants and car dealerships.  It was the biggest town in the region, and it contained all the necessities of civilization - even if it did hold them in a rather small inventory. 

“ _Directions, Stonebridge_ ,” Richmond spoke up.  “ _And Scott’s going to love this part_.”

“Oh, yeah?” Scott asked, sitting up.

“ _You’re going to take a right into Brug Street, and then at the bottom of Brug Street you’re going to turn into Scott Street_.”

“Scott Street,” Scott said.  “Heh-heh-heh-heee.”  He reached out and punched Michael on the arm.  “Gotta love a town with such good taste in street names.”

“ _Carpenter’s Guesthouse is on your right just before you get to the bridge._ ” 

“Roger that,” Michael answered.  There was the first hint of a smile around his lips.  Old Stonehenge was coming back to life again.    

“Scott Street,” said Scott, happily.  “You know, I got a good feeling about this place, Mikey.” 

 

* * *

  

‘Carpenters Guesthouse,’ was pinned against a whitewashed wall in wrought-iron letters. 

Stonebridge pulled the car in through an open gate and between palm trees.  They had arrived, and he sighed when he turned the engine off.  He liked the Landcruiser, but after driving for four hours, and sleeping in the back seat before that, he was happy to get out.  He had an idea that Scott had done more than his fair share of the driving, letting him sleep for longer than he should, but he didn’t feel any more rested in spite of it.  He felt more tired than before they’d set out. 

He put on his sunglasses against the morning sun, and peeled the back of his sweaty shirt away from his back.  He picked up his Bergen, and the duffelbag with the rest of their kit. 

“After you, Mr Langley,” he said to Scott. 

Scott treated him to the cheeky grin.  “As you wish, Mr Byers,” he drawled and turned toward the door. 

Scott had woken up in a good mood, Stonebridge realized.  He bounced cheerfully across the parking lot.  

Usually, Scott’s morning moods were a regular annoyance, like waking up with a big puppy – a hairy, aggressive puppy that carried a gun and made stupid pop-culture references. But not today. _Today_ Stonebridge found himself looking closely at Scott, with hope rising in his heart. Might Scott be in a good enough mood this morning to carry on where they had left off last night?  Their kiss in the Crib was fresh in Stonebridge’s mind.  His delight had simmered overnight, but now it was being overlaid with worry.  What if he made another move, and was rebuffed?  What if Scott had changed his mind in the light of day?  What if Scott never kissed him again?

Scott went up onto a slate patio, and up to a set of glass doors.  The doors were closed, but he tapped on one pane, and made a gesture with his hand to someone inside.  A moment later the doors slid open, and they walked in. Facing them was a window and a wood-panelled counter-top, with a woman smiling expectantly at them.  She made a noise. It might have been ‘good morning’ in Afrikaans, or it might have been clearing her throat.

Scott ambled over to the counter, and dumped his Bergen on the floor.  He pulled his sunglasses off one-handed, and waved them at her, cheerfully.  “G’morning…” he said, and made a mime of reading her name tag.  “…Magda.” 

“Hello,” she said, smiling. 

“We’ve just hit town, want to know if you’ve got two rooms for us?”  Scott said, lowering his Bergen to the floor.

Stonebridge left the conversation to Scott, and looked around.  The woman behind the counter was young, and quite short.  Her face was walnut brown and heart-shaped, with high cheeks.  And he became aware that she was more than just short: she was _tiny_ , and as delicately built as a bird.  Her face was level with the centre of his chest.  _The little people of the Kalahari...?_ Stonebridge realized he was looking at his first ever San. He had never met a San before. He'd read a lot about them  - although he guessed it would be rude to start quizzing her about her people's military prowess.

“I can only give youse one room for now,” she said.  “But someone else is checking out today, and I can give youse another room at two?  Is that _orraait?_ ”

“Anything you’ve got’ll be great,” Scott said, in full flirtation mode, treating her to his most dashing grin.  “We just drove straight through the night to get here.”  

“ _Orraaait,_ ” she said.  “Breakfast is at eight in the dining room.  We can arrange tours for you, trips to the waterfalls, river trips, shuttle to the golf-course…?” 

Scott took out Langley’s credit card, and swiped it in the machine she gave him.  He shook his head.  “Aaah, no,” he sighed, with melodramatic regret – as if _he_ played golf, Stonebridge thought!  “We’re here on business, not pleasure.  Going to be running around at all hours.”   

“Well, reception is always open,” she said.  She brought out a key card and gave it to Scott.  “Your room number are twenty-three.”    

“You are a star.”  Scott dropped her a wink, and bent to pick up his Bergen. 

Stonebridge hefted his load again, and led the way around the corner. They followed the corridor past a dining room and lounge, and up a flight of stairs.  Door twenty-three opened at Scott’s card-swipe.  He pushed it open, and Stonebridge followed him in.  He closed the door behind them. 

Hotel-rooms always had a certain smell.  A certain dead perfection that hung in the air – whether it was the starched linen or the frequent cleaning, or just the fact that the windows weren’t open often enough, he didn’t know.  The room wasn’t big, but it was tastefully furnished with a three-quarter-sized bed and a pair of overstuffed armchairs in caramel stripes. 

Stonebridge put his Bergen and bags on the chest at the foot of the bed.  Scott dumped his on the floor.  He went straight across to the windows and threw the curtains wide with the swoosh of curtain-rings. 

The bed…

He and Scott had a bed to share, for the next few hours… his heart thumped a little faster at the idea. He opened his mouth to comment on the bed, but shut it at the sound of the window opening.  The room had a glass sliding door and an insect-screen, and Scott was sliding them both open. 

Stonebridge followed him outside onto the deck and stopped.  Their room had a small decked balcony, looking down on a lawn and a swimming pool.  He could hear birds, and a single car in the distance trundling over the bridge.  It was pretty. 

“Nice,” he said, surprised.

And then, with a little skip in his heart, he remembered _why_ it was so nice: the same reason their house in Cape Town had been so nice, with its huge bathtub and its gorgeous view.  Cleopatra needed a nice carpet to seduce Caesar.  

Scott leaned his shoulder against the supporting pole of the balcony’s roof.  “Mine,” Scott said. 

“Nuh- _uh_ ,” Stonebridge said.  He held up a fist. 

Scott looked at his fist, and bobbed his own.  One, two, three, and Scissors cut Paper. 

“Mine,” said Scott, again – this time with a smug smile.

“ _Nice,_ ” Stonebridge complained.  He folded his arms, and leaned his shoulder against the opposite side of the same pole.  They examined the scenery. 

They were right on the edge of the desert.  The heat in the air, the hard bronze sky gave it away.  The trees around them were green, and the lawn was green, but those were the gift of the river.  The ‘green Kalahari’ – he’d seen it on satellite images, and it was just a wiggly green ribbon on a whole sheet of brown. 

“Where’s the river?”  Scott asked. 

“There,” Stonebridge said, pointing past the trees to a strip of bright green beyond the lawn.  The bridge arrowed out across it to the other bank. 

“That can’t be it.” 

“That’s it.”

“That’s not orange.” 

He stared at Scott around the pole.  “It’s not called the Orange River because it’s orange!”

“Then why’s it called that?”

“I don’t know!”

“Then why’s it not orange?”

“Because it’s not orange!  The Red Sea isn’t red, is it?”

“It should be orange,” Scott insisted.

Stonebridge reached for his radio.  “Zero,” he said, “Bravo Two here.”

“ _Reading you Lima Charlie_ ,” Richmond said.

“Zero, request permission to shoot the American now?”

Scott rolled his eyes. 

“ _Why?_ ” Richmond asked.

“He says the Orange River has to be orange.” 

“ _Permission denied, Bravo Two_ ,” Sinclair’s voice came onto the line.  “ _It’s not called the_ _Orange_ _any more.  Its new name is the Gariep._ ”

Scott laughed, rocking on his heels with delight.  He’d heard that through his own earpiece. 

“Roger that,” Stonebridge said. 

“ _Are you close to your computer?_ ”  Sinclair asked. 

“We can get there,” Stonebridge said.  “Two minutes.”  He pushed himself away from the pole, and went back inside the room. 

There was a desk next to the TV.  Scott sat down there and booted up his laptop, while Stonebridge sat on the edge of the bed watching him. The connection came up.  Scott tapped the passwords into the Crib’s link-up software, patching the laptop into the Crib via a satellite connection.  The video opened on Richmond and Sinclair in the Crib.

It felt good to see their familiar faces.  “Hey, Oprah,” Scott said, cheerfully.  “How’s Chicago?” 

“ _Windy.  Our satellite dish blew down this morning.  How’s Upington?_ ” Richmond replied.  

“Hot as fuck,” Scott said. 

“ _Have you established a base?_ ” Sinclair said. 

“We’ve got Room Two-Three at Carpenters, and we’re waiting for another room to check-out for Mikey,” Scott said.  “Where’s Mystery Guest?”

“ _Mystery Guest was in the area of_ _Steenbok Road_ _last night until_ _three am_ _.  He got a call from_ _Cape Town_ _, and then his cellphone signal went dark_.”

“They warned him he was compromised, so he took the battery out of the phone, and ditched it,” Stonebridge said.   

“Source of the call …?” Scott started, but Sinclair interrupted him. 

“ _The call was made from a public phone box_ ,” he said. 

There was no need to say more.  You couldn’t trace a public call box, because it never went anywhere – just sat on its street corner and waited for callers. 

“The world’s only unbreakable code,” Stonebridge said, sourly.  “A phone number scribbled on a Post-It note.”

“ _I’ve hacked a few local computer systems, and nothing’s hit_ ,” Richmond said.  “ _Knox has no known properties in Upington.  No known business associates, no family.  No leads_.”

“Mystery Guest wouldn’t have phoned from Upington unless Camp B was at least somewhere in this area,” Stonebridge said. 

“ _I’m widening the circle_ ,” Richmond said.  “ _I’ve got a data analysis on Knox’s  contacts in the_ _Northern Cape_ _._ ”

“What’s our next move?” Stonebridge asked. 

“ _For now, hold your positions_ ,” Sinclair said.  “ _We’ll send you new intel as we find it.”_

“We can go poke around Steenbok Road,” Stonebridge suggested. 

“ _Negative_ ,” Sinclair said.  “ _Stand by and wait for further instructions_.”

Stonebridge restrained the urge to sigh.  “Wilco,” he said.  “Standing by until further notice.” 

They cut the connection. 

“Fuck me, typical Army,” Scott complained, closing the laptop.  He sat back and thumped his feet on the floor.  “Hurry up and _wait!_ ”

“Some things never change, do they?” Stonebridge agreed.

“Move, move, _move!_ – now _stop_.  Pick it up pick it up pick it up! – _heeey_ there, put it _down_ , put it _down,_ put it _dowwwwn_.” He said the last word with a deep musical note.  “Drive all night, and then sit around all fucking morning with your thumb in your ass.” 

“I don’t mind the chance for some R ‘n R,” Stonebridge said. 

He was sitting on a bed, he realized: on a very deep and soft mattress, in a nice bedroom wafted with desert breezes.  It was big enough for two.  He leaned over, until he was lying on his back on the bed, his head on the deep pile of pillows.  He stretched his arms, and wrapped his wrists behind his head.   “Especially the R,” he added.     

Scott hooked his elbow over the back of the chair and turned around to look at him.  “Yeah, I’ll bet.” He couldn’t read Scott’s face.  Scott was looking at him with a curiously opaque expression in his eyes – he seemed to be thinking something over internally. 

“We have nothing else to do,” Stonebridge said. 

“That’s true,” Scott said.  His eyebrows flickered up and down.  “Yeah!  Breakfast!  We can do breakfast.” 

If the obtuse American wasn’t going to take a fucking hint...  “ _Be_ like that, then,” Stonebridge said.  “I’m going to have a shower.”  He rolled himself upright off the bed. 

His Bergen was still on the chest at the foot of the bed, and he carried it to the bathroom.  He dumped it on the tiles, and slid the bathroom door closed. 

The bathroom was decorated in warm caramel-and-maroon tiles to match the décor of the bedroom – tasteful but bland.  It wasn’t very big, but it had a glass-fronted shower. He brushed his teeth, one eye on the door between him and Scott, but the door didn’t move. 

He stripped off his clothes while the water ran hot, and put them in the bathtub for the laundry-service.  Then he stood naked outside the shower, opened the taps, and let the water run over his extended hand until the temperature was just right. 

The door didn’t move. 

The shower head had been fitted with one of those heads that blows the stream into a fine spray to conserve water.  He put his face into it, allowing it to drizzle into his eyes and ears.  Then he bowed his head so that the water ran down over his crown and neck, and sluiced down the blade of his spine down between his buttocks.  The bruise on his chest where the pony had stood on him was coming up in a lovely purple.

There was hotel shower gel in a recess in the tiles.  He poured a capful into his palm – vanilla – and spread it on his sponge.  Then he lathered himself with it.  The hot spray chased the lather down his body and puddled it around his wet feet – luxurious waste. 

Alone, he could think back over the last few days.  He leaned his brow against the wall and closed his eyes.  

This whole mission had been one long fuck-up.  He’d fucked up keeping Evans safe.    He’d fucked up keeping Adonis safe.  He’d fucked up getting Suvorin out of the nightclub.  He’d fucked up fetching Moyo.  He’d seen Moyo hit into a deep coma by a car, and _that_ was his fuck-up too. Everything in his life, private and professional, had turned to shit; all his skills scattered, all his certainties shattered.  He wouldn’t pass Selection now.  Hell, he wouldn’t let _himself_ pass Selection now, if he’d appeared as one of his own students. 

But he could deal with it, and move on.  He could cope, because he had to.  Things were going to shit, but he could keep it together and push through.  He couldn’t afford to get all wobbly.  _Stay focused_ , he told himself.  Getting Hanson was just too important to let his feelings get away from him. 

He turned around to look through the glass at his Bergen.

There was a dark shape on the other side of the steamy glass. 

Someone was sitting on the edge of the bath.  Someone who’d come into the bathroom from the bedroom, very quietly, very smoothly. 

“Scott?” he asked.  He brushed the water out of his eyes with his fingers. 

“I wanted to watch.” 

Scott’s voice was low, and hoarse.  Something in the timbre of it went straight to Stonebridge’s groin.  His erection rose.

“You can’t see much from there,” he said. 

“So open the door,” Scott said. 

That command – he’d heard that tone before, last night, in the Crib.  Scott wanted his body – wanted to tell him what to do with it.  The hairs rose all along the backs of Stonebridge’s arms, and his throat tightened.  He tried to swallow, but his larynx had all dried up. 

He reached out for the little white handle of the door and opened it.  The door’s magnets parted with a little _plink_ , and he slid the door open.

Scott was fully clothed, but bootless.  He sat sidesaddle on the rim of the bath, one ankle hoisted onto his knee.  He rolled his head back, and his eyes roamed over Stonebridge’s wet body from his chest to his groin.  His tongue rolled along the inside of his lip, and his eyes flared with appreciation. 

“Huh,” he said.  “How ‘bout that.”

“Come here,” Stonebridge asked, holding out one hand.  He was very aware of his bare body. 

“No,” Scott said.  “I want to watch.” 

Stonebridge dropped his hand.  “Well.  _Be_ like that, then.”

He turned his back, and recaptured his sponge.  He started from the beginning again, soaping his body, but this time he didn’t so much scrub at himself as roll the sponge over his skin.  He could almost feel Scott’s gaze on his buttocks.  The imagined stroke of Scott’s eyes made his belly tremble, made his penis hot and heavy with desire.  He knew how good his back looked. 

“Do you like what you’re looking at?” he asked the soapdish. 

“Yeah.” 

“Come here, then.” 

“I want to see you touch yourself.”

“ _You’re_ bloody demanding.”

“ _You’re_ ready.” 

He couldn’t deny it.  His erection was huge and heavy, so heavy it seemed to be pulling down on his stomach.  His desire seemed to be stuck in his throat, drying his mouth, making it hard to breath. He turned around, naked in front of Scott.  He met Scott’s eyes, and took hold of himself with one hand.  His hands were already wet, his skin slick.  He took a gentle pulling stroke on his dick. 

Scott watched him, his eyes slightly glazed.  Scott looked as if his mouth was dry too.  He swallowed.  His eyes were fixed on Stonebridge’s groin.  And then his hand moved to the front of his jeans, and unbuckled his belt.  He ran down his zip and slid his hand inside his flies.  His hand began to move, touching himself. 

God, he was having an effect on Scott…

Did strippers feel this?  This eagerness to make a man lust for them?  This burning desire to prove himself the master of Scott’s gaze?  He was displayed like a stripper performing, debasing himself at the command of his client.  And he found he liked it.  He liked the feeling of Scott’s eyes on his nakedness.  He _wanted_ to make Scott want him.  He _wanted_ to be Scott’s slut. 

He couldn’t help it; his grip was speeding up, thrusting himself closer to his climax.  His eyes on Scott, the way Scott was looking at him…  he was close…

And then just at the moment before he went over the wall he stopped himself.  He applied the Squeeze.  “That’s enough,” he gasped, wobbling slightly in the stall and reaching out with his free hand for the tiles.  

“No, it isn’t.” Scott’s hand paused in its rhythm. 

He braced himself against the tiles, straightening his back.  “You want any more,” he whispered, “you’re going to have to come over here and take it.” 

He waited to see what Scott would do, how he would react to his defiance.  He knew how _he_ would react, given such an incitement.  His mouth was dry at the thought of being on the receiving end, for the first time in his sexual life. 

“You want me?” 

“I want you…” he said, hearing himself speak with a tone that startled him.  “Come over here and take me.” 

He waited, panting, still aroused.  In his mind, he was panicking, terrified that he’d pushed too far, that Scott was going to go away, that this would all just stop and leave him exposed and embarrassed.  This was the hottest, dirtiest, sluttiest thing he’d ever done – it felt horribly bad, and deliriously good…

Scott made him wait.  He sat there on the edge of the bath and stared, as if turning things around in his mind, until Stonebridge was ready to surrender and start stroking himself again.  Then, thank God, Scott got up, and moved closer. 

“Undress me.”

He’d never obeyed a sexual command, before Scott.  He always gave the commands, he never received them.  But the change felt good.  It was exciting, not knowing where Scott was going to take him.  It felt good to have control over something taken away.  He could _feel_ this, feel it without any inhibitions, lose his head completely in feelings.

He got out of the shower.  The tiles were cool under his wet feet.  Scott’s shirt was dry, the texture rough against his damp fingers.  He set his fingers to the buttons, undoing them one by one, all the way down to Scott’s belly.  Scott stood relaxed with his hands at his sides, letting him.  

He’d seen Scott undressed just last night, but as he pushed the shirt off Scott’s shoulders the massive muscular hairiness of his chest took his breath away.  He pulled the shirt down Scott’s arms and around his hands.  He dropped the shirt to the floor.  Then he pushed Scott’s trousers down his thighs.  Scott stepped out of them, and kicked them away so that he stood in his underpants and socks. 

Scott’s belly and chest were broad, and covered with hair.  His skin was rumpled with scars and scrapes.  Stonebridge could smell his breath, smell the smoke on him. This body was his to touch.  He put both hands on Scott’s shoulders and traced his palms down the front of his chest to his nipples.  Scott swayed his head back, enjoying the touch, with a little chuckle of pleasure in his throat.  His lips were curved in a slight smile, not quite showing his teeth. 

Stonebridge ran his fingers over the little studs of his nipples.  Male nipples, firm and neat.  They pouted under his chest, but when he tweaked them nothing happened. 

So, nipples weren’t Scott’s thing. 

He ran his hands back up and along Scott’s neck.  The tendons of his throat rose out of the base of his chest, power rising out of delicacy, like soaring trees.  His neck was powerful, a lattice of tendons and cords, and he took the time to savour that wonderful complexity with his fingertips. 

“You’re beautiful,” he breathed.  He ran his fingers down across the sides of his pectorals, down his flanks, and then back down his front again, and again he was rewarded with the little sway of pleasure. 

Nipples might not be Scott’s thing – but deep stroking did the trick… Ahh.  He was doing this _right_.  He ran his hands through and down Scott’s chest hair, down the warm pillar of his body, down to his belly, and finally his palms drew down and came to rest on the rocky outcrop of his hipbones.  His thumbs lay on Scott’s skin, just short of the band of his underpants, and he took a moment to consider what lay before him. 

Scott’s erection bulged out the front of his underpants, matching his own. 

And here was a turning point, before him.  To take that final scrap of green fabric away crossed a line: the border between just messing around, pushing his boundaries … and doing something real, something irrevocable. This would change everything.  This was the line between having a lark … and doing something irretrievably gay.

The line was behind him in the blink of an eye. Stonebridge hooked a finger into the front of Scott’s underpants, drawing them away from his belly, and took a look inside.  He folded the underpants down, and reached in with his other hand. 

Another man’s dick, in his hand, hot and hard and heavy.  It was as solid and stiff as steel, but cloaked with skin as smooth as liquid silk.  It bobbed slightly at his touch as he moved his fingers around it.  The head was smooth and clean – he’d been circumcised. 

Another man’s dick, in his hand, looking very much the same as his own.  Probably reacted the same as his own. 

He stroked his thumb under the thin skin underneath, traced the tiny delicate point where head met shaft, and felt it bob in his hand with response.  He took a firm grip, and ran his fingers down it in a smooth pump.  It jacked in his grip.  He let go of the penis, and ran his hand down the side of it through thick dark hair to Scott’s balls.  They were heavy, and he cupped them in his palm, and rolled them gently in his fingers.  Scott was trembling. 

He returned his hand to his dick, and closed his fingers around Scott’s shaft, and gave him a slow firm tug. 

“Mh-h-h,” Scott burst out.  His back arched, hips following the tug, as if Stonebridge had pulled directly on his nervous system. 

He was definitely having an effect on Scott, and it was too exciting just to stand and watch.  He leaned in and closed with Scott, pushing in for a kiss, his free hand going around Scott’s waist.  For the first time, Scott moved, wrapping his arms around Stonebridge’s shoulders and turning his head to meet the kiss. 

They’d kissed before, last night, but then he hadn’t had his hand cupping Scott’s dick, to feel just how right he was getting it.  His memory had not been wrong.  Scott tasted like smoke, and his stubble stung.  His kiss was rough, and energetic, both giving and taking with strength and self-confidence.  His teeth were hard and foreign, and his tongue probed and flickered like an eel against Stonebridge’s own. 

Stonebridge matched his rhythm, lip to lip, until his mouth was as sensitive as his nipples.  Stonebridge found himself gasping, and then suddenly he was aware of how his own erection was pressing hard against Scott’s belly. He broke the kiss, his mouth stinging like spice, hot and bruised. 

“Come here,” he whispered into Scott’s mouth.  He stepped back and used his arm around Scott’s shoulders to draw him after him into the shower. 

“Hang on,” Scott gasped, and suddenly broke away.  He backed up, and grasped the side of the shower stall with one hand. 

“Whuh..?” Stonebridge said.  His heart sank.  Scott had changed his mind?  The terror and lust in his belly wrestled until he could feel his knees shaking. 

“Socks!” Scott said, and he was hopping on one leg and peeling off one sock with his fingers.  He flicked the first sock away. “Wait for me!” he said, grinning wickedly.

“Hah,” Stonebridge said.  He wasn’t being rejected.  “You’ll have to catch up!”  He ducked back under the spray of hot water and stood watching Scott. 

Scott threw the second sock aside.  He took a moment to unclip the Paracord bracelet, and dropped it onto the floor, and then he jumped after Stonebridge, closing suddenly with speed.  Stonebridge yielded, retreating under the water. 

“Here,” Scott said, and his hand closed on Stonebridge’s dick. 

Something in Stonebridge twanged like a guitar string, and he nearly cried out with the shock and pleasure of a firm grasp on his dick.  The skin of his penis seemed on fire, electrified with pleasure.  His back arched in a reflex spasm.  “Yes!” he croaked.

Scott pushed, and he let himself be pushed back, until his back was against the wall, the tiles flat and hard against his shoulder blades.  Scott came on, until he was leaning up against Stonebridge’s body.  Scott’s hair was immediately a slick cap, but his eyes were intense, and Stonebridge’s heart was hammering. 

He was pinned against the wall, their bodies pressed firmly together, his dick owned by Scott, and he tried to thrust into Scott’s hand.  “Please,” he gasped, aware of the desperation that broke in his voice.  He jacked into Scott’s hand, his hips jerking with the need to thrust into that firm space.  The kiss had been like a fire, but it still wasn’t enough, he wanted more.   

“You do me too,” Scott rasped into his ear. 

He reached down for Scott’s groin, and his hand locked around Scott like it had been laser guided.  He tugged slightly, and Scott leaned in with a groan of pleasure.  He was so close that he dropped his face against Stonebridge’s neck, his chin on Stonebridge’s shoulder as if he was concentrating deeply.  His free hand gripped Stonebridge’s hip.  Stonebridge was pinned against the wall, supporting Scott’s weight. 

They stood pressed together in the shared warmth and wetness of the shower.  They were hip to hip, not facing each other, but laced together, dovetailed like dancers.  Each dick lay against the other’s hip.  He could feel Scott’s juddering breathing against  his chest.

Water was all around them.  They were in a cloud of warmth, skin on skin, and soaking wet.  He was aware of the strength and power of the body against his; he could feel the iron muscles, and the scrape of chest hair against his nipples. 

And then Scott gave a firm nursing pull, and he was aware of nothing but Scott’s hand.  His eyes went wide, unseeing, his head falling forward against the rock of Scott’s shoulder. 

He gasped.  But to receive demanded a return.  He took a firm pull, and Scott gasped in his turn. 

And then Scott took another pull. 

 _That_ was how this was going to go…

They settled into a rhythm.  Tug, tug, tug, matching speeds.  Stonebridge was being firmly held, and he could abandon himself to the rising fire in his body.  Tug, tug, tug, and as the pleasure in him grew his gasps grew louder, breaking out between his teeth.  The rain of warm water gave them all the lubrication they needed.  Tug, tug, tug, and he did not need to look down  at his hand to see that he was doing it right.  The air came in and out of Scott’s body, as if Scott was running.  Scott’s back was thrusting, humping himself against Stonebridge’s body, jacking into Stonebridge’s hand. 

The desperate tempo quickened.  Tug, tug, tug, each tug raising the pressure, until suddenly it was all too much. His climax arrived between one tug and the next, wringing itself from the seat of the fire and along the shaft of his dick.  His head whiplashed back against the wall, his eyes clamping shut with the white-hot pleasure of his climax. 

The roar of achievement broke out of him, boast and release and joy all in one. 

“Ah-h-h-h-h-hmm!”  The warmth of his ejaculation pulsed down his shaft.  It emptied him out.  “Oh-h-h,” he sighed, sated. 

Scott was jigging with rapid jerks, battering against him, and Stonebridge took a firm grasp on him.  He felt the pulsing of Scott’s ejaculation between his fingers, his dick throbbing in Stonebridge’s hand.  Little whinnying noises were coming out of Scott, and then they broke down into a sigh.  The frantic hammering motion died away. 

Scott slumped against him.

Stonebridge’s knees were shaking.  He let his head fall back against the tiles, and let his eyes close, limp with satisfaction and relief. 

“Oh, hell, yeah,” Scott murmured.  He let his head fall forward onto Stonebridge’s shoulder, his face snuggling into the side of his neck.  Stonebridge felt his laugh.  "Heh-heh-heh.” 

"I've never done that before," Stonebridge said, his eyes still closed, smiling up through the mist of falling water.  The pleasure still echoed inside him, filling him with goodwill and warmth.  

"Me neither," Scott said. 

"I thought you had," Stonebridge said. 

 “Yeah, but - not like _that!"_ Scott corrected himself, and then laughed again.  He pressed both arms around Stonebridge, and squeezed him close.  “I meant ... I’m sorry, it’s just… it’s just…  God, that was good!  You, you’re _good_.” 

“Just good?” 

“No,” Scott agreed.  “You’re great.  You're awesome.”  Stonebridge felt a kiss being pressed against the side of his neck, felt Scott’s arms sliding away from him.  They’d both come, and it was over, but suddenly he didn’t want to lose this perfect bubble of warmth and love. 

“Don’t go,” he said. 

“I'm not going anywhere.”  Scott slid down, and folded himself down into a sitting position on the floor of the stall.  “Can’t stand.  Stick a fork in me, I’m done.”

Stonebridge lowered himself down.  “Now, this feels odd,” he said. 

“What, you’ve never wanked in the shower before?”

“I’ve never _sat down_ in the shower before.” 

Scott was in just the right place for Stonebridge to fold himself around his body like a human origami.  Scott’s skin was warm and wet.  Already the evidence of what they’d just done had disappeared, and he looked clean and warm.   

“Welcome to my world, buddy.” 

That could be taken in two ways, Stonebridge thought to himself.  He ran his hand down Scott’s arm.  “You’re gorgeous.” 

“Naah,” Scott said. 

“You are,” Stonebridge said.  “I mean it.”  He leaned over and pressed a chaste kiss to the side of Scott’s head. 

“I’m not exactly pretty.”  Scott touched his own chest.  “I’m all hairy.”

He took the time to run his hand up the tattooed tiger, and over his chest.  “No.  I like all this.”  His finger found Scott’s nipple, and spooled around it gently.  “You’re just my type.”

“You telling me you’ve got a _type?”_

He smiled, and buried it in a nibble.  “Yes, I have a type.”

Scott tipped his head back against the tiles, the water spilling down his high forehead.  He smiled up into the rain of warm water.  “Turn off the taps?  Feel like I’m being waterboarded.” 

“Demanding Americans,” Stonebridge sighed.  He reached up a hand above his head, and pressed the lever of the tap.  The hot rain turned into a pattering line of heavy drops, which tapered and stopped. 

He lowered his hand, and pressed it against Scott’s shoulder.  “So,” he asked.  “What’s this?”  He had his hand on Scott’s tattoo. 

“A shark.” 

“I can see that, tosser.  What does it _mean?_ ” 

“It’s me.  The shark is me.”

“You’re not a shark.”

“Yeah, I am.  I’m the Shark in the Dark.  The tat is to remind me of that.  See the razor blades?”  He turned his head to look down his own upper arm, and reached his other hand across to trace the shark’s spine.  “That’s to remind me not to turn and cut the people around me.  I’ll cause more harm than good, if I’m not careful.”

“You don’t cause harm,” Stonebridge said, struck by the self-condemnation in his words.  “You helped save thousands of people from Latif, last year.”

“That don’t wipe out the past, Mikey.  You don’t know what I’ve done.  The shark is a reminder.”

“And this one?”  He reached across Scott’s body, and pressed his palm on the tattoo on his side. 

“This one… is _home._   Home, family, the Army, the States.” 

He didn’t see the similarity between the tattoo and Detroit, but it brought Dalton’s orders into sharp focus in his head.  It was his intention that Scott never went home to Detroit.  It was his duty to ensure that the tattoo was the closest to Scott’s home that he got. 

But he had Scott, framed by a hand on each tattoo.  His arms were full of warm, wet American, and for now he was happy to sit here.  He was full of post-climax endorphins, he realized; and oh God, how he needed them.  He needed something to feel good, right now.  Actually, he just needed something to _feel,_ right now – feeling anything would do, but feeling something nice was better.

“Thinking about getting another one,” Scott said. 

“Another tattoo?”

“What, do you think I’m running out of skin?” Scott rolled his head against the tiles and grinned at him.  A trickle of water ran out of his hairline and down his temple.  “I want to get some writing.  Anger is death.  Ugandan proverb.  I want it in Hindi, maybe, or Malayalam – I like the Malayalam script.  What do you think?”

Stonebridge leaned closer, stretched his head out to kiss the trickle on his brow.  “I think you’ve got enough tattoos.”

“No, dickhead, about Malayalam.”

“Do you speak Malayalam?”

“No, but that’s not the point.  You think every loser with a Chinese character on their ass speaks Chinese?”

“Hmm,” He pretended to think.  “I think you’ll be very lucky if the tattooist doesn’t write ‘ _Damien Scott is a prick_ ,’” he said, deadpan.

“Naah.  I’ve got a way with tattooists.  They like me.”

“Oh, I’m sure your natural charm and winning ways have made you many friends, all over the world,” he teased. 

“Maybe Latin.” Scott ignored the jibe.  “Latin’s cool.  _Ira est Mortem_.”

“You’re not going to tell me you speak Latin.”

“Google Translate.”

Stonebridge laughed; quiet, satisfied, sated, happy.  “Oh, then you _really_ don’t know what your tattoo is going to say.” 

“Anger is death.  It’s deep.” 

“I’m sure.”

“Yeah.  Realized it after Grant died.  I let the anger go, and it felt like a weight coming off my shoulders.  I’m going to put it,” he reached up and tapped the top of his shoulder, “right here.  Anger is death.”

“Is that why you burned the Trojan Horse file?”

Scott paused, and his blue gaze went introspective, his eyes fixed on the tiles.  “Partly.  What good did getting pissed off do me?  Getting angry won’t get back the life I had before.”

“You could have got back into Delta Force, with that file.” 

“Got nothing to do with Delta Force.  Got to do with _me_.  I can’t hang onto the past.  Time to close the book, and move forward.  What good does staying pissed off do?  You chuck away your peace of mind – and what for?  The fucker who made you mad just goes on his merry way.  Stewing about vengeance just isn’t worth it.”

 “There’s something to be said for vengeance,” he said.  “Sometimes anger keeps a man going when nothing else will.  An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  Some wrongs need to be righted.” 

“And the cycle goes on for another generation?  Naah.  Anger is like poison, and that’s the truth.”

As Scott was speaking, Stonebridge felt his spine stiffen.  They were too intimate, now, and suddenly he wanted the conversation to stop.  They were getting uncomfortably close. 

“Is there a moral message for me in that?” he asked, hearing the brusque tone in his voice.  He pulled his arm away and pushed himself away from Scott.  “Because I don’t want to hear it, right?” 

“There’s no moral message in it for anyone but me.  It’s my body, I’ll do what I like with it.”  He leaned his head back against the wall. 

“Good,” Stonebridge said.  Pulling on each other’s dicks was fine.  But this depth of self-exposure – no.  

“But for what it’s worth … Hanson _wants_ you to be angry.  He wants to drag you down to his level.”

“Where did you get to be so wise, that you can tell me what do with my life?”

“Listen, idiot.  I’m not above you, on my little yogi cloud.”  He raised one finger and pointed it up, aiming at the shower nozzle above their heads.  “I didn’t just look into the abyss.  I fell in and landed on my head and couldn’t get up again.  I’m under you, looking up, and I don’t want you falling in with me.  You deserve better, buddy.” 

“I think it’s time for breakfast,” Stonebridge said, but Scott gripped him firmly by the shoulder.

“You’re a _good_ man, Mikey.  Don’t give that up.”

Stonebridge shook his arm free.  “It’s time for breakfast,” he repeated, suddenly desperate to get out of such intimate proximity. Scott had too much to say, and too much of it stung.  “Let’s go and get a cup of coffee.” 

 

* * *

 

 

“Major?” Richmond’s voice was urgent, as she swivelled her chair, her finger pressing her earpiece.

Dalton looked up.  “What is it?”

“Call for you, from Whitehall.” 

“Patch it my desk.” Dalton pushed herself away from the light-table, leaving it to Sinclair.  She walked to the cordoned off section of the Crib, and picked up her set of headphones. 

“Dalton here.” 

“Major Dalton, this is Colonel Hodge, calling from General Bennett’s office.” 

Hodge wasn’t a combat commander, but she was a good staff officer.  She wasn’t quite in Oliver Sinclair’s league; but then again, who was? 

“I recognise your voice, ma’am,” she said.  “What can I do for you?”

“I’m afraid we’re pulling your team out of South Africa.” 

Joseph Dreyer had been pulling strings; slimy little shit.  “Why, ma’am?”

“We need your team in the Congo.  We need people on the ground with the tools to find out who’s behind M23, and the weapons to put a stop to them.  The last thing we need is an escalation of hostilities sucking in the whole Great Lakes Region.  Official orders are being cut, but stand by.  This will be an important mission.”

“We’ve got an important mission here.”

“You _think_ you have an important mission.  I’ve read the report from Niamey, Major.  Have you any proof that there are any nukes there at all?”

“I’ve spoken to an eye-witness who has seen them.  The nukes exist.”

“Mossad can clean them up.  It’s their mess.  Come home.” 

“Mossad has packed up and left.  With Evans’ death, there’s no longer anything to connect them to the nukes.  And we have an added complication.  Knox has put his hands on ballistic missiles.”

“ _What?_ ” 

She heard the surprise in Hodge’s voice.  “Ex-Russian SS-23 Spiders, from Libya, stolen from South African customs.  We believe they’re somewhere in the Northern Cape.  I’ll push the data to you.  We need to stay here.”

“Leave it to the South Africans.”

She was going to have to talk quickly, or see her team packed off to the Congo. 

“Their chain of command has been compromised by their relationship with Conrad Knox.  The South Africans are unreliable.  Ma’am, this is Section Twenty’s _raison d’etre_ – getting in-country under the radar, and stopping catastrophes before they happen.  With those missiles, Knox has the power to strike at any city on the continent.  And Africa is a powderkeg at the moment – particularly the Sahel.  M23, Boko Haram, AQIM, Al-Shabaab – if even _one_ of those nukes gets to even _one_ of those groups it could mean a region-wide war.”

“Policy is not your responsibility, Major,” Hodge said, stiffness in her voice. 

“No, ma’am, but with all due respect, we all have a responsibility to stamp out fires before they start.  We can stop a war, ma’am, before it gets to the front page of The Times.  _And_ before anyone asks how the triggers got to Libya in the first place.  If this gets out, it could blow back on Whitehall in a bad way.” 

There was a silence, while Hodge considered her words.  A threat to millions of lives in the Great Lakes Region was one thing.  A threat to people’s careers in Whitehall was another thing altogether.  Dalton knew that sort of ambition – she had it herself. 

“Very well,” the Colonel said.  “I’ll put your case to General Bennett.  But he’s going to want results.  If you don’t see any intel leading you to think that Knox intends using those nukes in the next three weeks, I’m pulling you out and sending you into the DRC.  I’m not wasting your team chasing phantom WMDs in circles for months on end.  We already did that in Iraq, and we’re not doing it again.”

“Understood, ma’am.”

After the call was cut, Dalton leaned against her desk, holding her headset in her hand and staring into space.  She was interrupted in her thoughts by Richmond, coming into the office.  

“Ma’am, we think we’ve got something.” 

Baxter and Sinclair were waiting at the big screen. 

“What have we got?” Dalton asked. 

“First thing.”  Richmond sat down at Primary One, and started talking.  “I’ve realized we’ve missed one of the needles in our haystack.”

“Explain.” 

“Knox has four Spider missiles, reconfigured to launch nuclear weapons.” 

“Analysis of Adonis’s software has made that clear.”

“But the Spider system is not a stand-alone missile.  It’s launched from a mobile platform.  Hydraulic lifts, on the back of a truck.”  Richmond tapped her keyboard, and the familiar picture of the missile and its truck standing on the lawn came up on the big screen.  “The trucks are an integral part of the system – but _they_ weren’t on the _Alexa Maersk_.” 

“The Spider’s main advantage is its flexibility,” Sinclair said.  “They can be launched from anywhere the trucks can go.”  He didn’t need to draw a picture. 

“He’ll need launch platforms for them – and he’s already got four trucks of the right size and weight capacity to carry them,” Richmond said.

“The four trucks stolen from Penzatrek,” Dalton finished.   

“They’ll need extensive modifications – but he’s had three months,” Richmond said. 

“He can use the sides of the trucks as cover for the missiles, until its too late,” Baxter said.  “Paint a supermarket’s logo on the side, drive it to within striking distance, and then…”  He let his words trail off.  “The ultimate car-bomb,” he said, glumly.  

 “Now, trying to find where the missiles themselves are being held is like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” Richmond said.  “He could keep them anywhere … but to do the truck modifications he’ll need the right equipment and expertise.” 

“Truck modification companies,” Dalton agreed. 

“I’ve already started cross-scanning Knox’s business associates with truck and custom car modifications,” Richmond said. 

“Good work, keep at it.” 

“We can call Ava Knox, and see if she can see any dealings with truck modifiers in Knox’s business records,” Richmond suggested. 

“That’s a negative, Sergeant,” Dalton told her.  “We’ll leave the lovely Miss Knox out of this.” 

 

* * *

 

 

“Here’s a thing,” Scott said, putting down his coffee cup, “Did you know we’re just a couple’ve hours’ away from where our nukes were s’posed to go _ka-boom_ , back in the day?” 

Michael was parked in the chair opposite, lurking over his cup of tea.  He was examining the lawn and the trees, but Scott could tell that the icechip eyes were unfocused.  They were in a lovely garden, they’d had a lovely breakfast, and they’d just had a lovely figgle in the shower – but Mikey was staring into space as if he was sitting in an airport waiting for a red-eye flight to Shitheapville. 

Michael shook himself back to the conversation.  “Back in the Eighties?” he asked.

“Back in the Seventies,” Scott said.  “It’s that-away.  Out in the desert.” He jerked his head towards the northern horizon, and took a sip of his coffee. 

“Huh.”  Michael jerked his chin out and held it there, in that familiar little tic of his, and gazed at the table as if it grieved him deeply.

“If they’d gone ahead and tested the fucking things back then, we wouldn’t be running around looking for them now.”

“Hmm,” Michael said.  “How very inconsiderate of them.”  He set his cup back into its saucer and sat back, gazing across the garden to the river. 

To anyone else, he might just look a bit pensive, but Scott knew him too well.  He knew that look.   Mikey was lost in the glomp-swamps again – probably starting to wonder what the fuck they’d just done in the shower. 

It was going to take a while for the suite of new feelings to settle into that thick Limey head, Scott thought.  He just hoped he wasn’t going to have to deal with a sudden case of delayed-onset gay-cooties. 

Still, a little bit of R ‘n R was better than none.  Orgasms were good for the endorphins, he’d been told; and fuck knew, Mikey was running short on warm fuzzy feelings right now.  He’d needed a boost. 

Scott’s phone rang, shaking its little Samsung ass on the breakfast table.  He put his cup of coffee down, picked it up and swept his thumb over the screen to answer it.  “Yo,” he said. 

“ _Are you able to talk?_ ”  The voice in his ear was Richmond’s. 

“That’s a negative.”  He rolled his eyes over at the nearest table.  They were a family of four, having a frenetic breakfast.  The youngest seemed to believe that breakfast was a thing to wear on one’s face, and its parents were occupied in trying to stop it.  Neither of them had yet noticed that the eldest was trying his utmost to unweave the wickerwork of the table with his fingers.  “We’re on the breakfast terrace.” 

He had Michael’s attention.  The big Brit shifted around in his chair, moving so as to listen and keep an eye out behind Scott.  They could watch each other’s backs for the approach of the waitress. 

“ _Shift to somewhere private_ ,” Richmond said.    

He snapped his phone closed.  “We’re on, buddy.  Drink up!” 

 

* * *

 

 

Michael led the way back to their room. 

Scott opened his laptop, and set it up on the desk.  He was aware of Michael behind him, arranging himself in a seated position on the corner of the bed.  He half-expected to feel a hand on his back, but no touch came.  They were back on the job, and Mikey had switched off all the PDA’s like the perfect soldier he was.

The video screen opened to the Crib.  Dalton was in the foreground with Richmond, Sinclair and Baxter behind her. 

“Hey, sports fans.  Welcome back,” Scott said. 

“ _We’ve got a mission for you_ ,” Dalton said, rocking on her toes.    

“Hit me,” Scott said, cheerfully.  “I’ve had my morning coffee, and I’m good to roll.”

Sinclair spoke up.  “ _We’ve been trying to hack into Upington’s traffic cameras, but we’ve had no joy because they just don’t have any_.”

Scott rolled his head back on his neck, and stared up at the ceiling.  “Go figure, a one-horse town with no traffic cameras.”

“ _So you’re going to go to_ _Steenbok Road_ _, and have a look around to see what you can see.  There’s another hotel there.  Mystery Guest may have been staying there.  Poke around, ask questions, see what you can see_.” 

“Wilco.”

“ _Second mission_.” 

“Great.”  He was aware of Michael leaning forward, shifting the balance of the mattress.  Mikey was staring intently over his shoulder.  He was very aware of Michael’s beefy bulk close at his back, near enough to touch. 

Richmond bent to Primary One, and a moment later a window opened alongside their video screen.

Dalton went on talking.  “ _Taljaard Ingeneurswerke.  They’re a vehicle modification company located just outside Upington.  They build custom trucks, ambulances, trailers for local industry – especially farmers.  They built Stellar Arabians a set of custom horse-boxes five years ago.  We think they converted those four stolen trucks into missile launchers_.”

“Fuck,” Scott said. 

“ _This_ is why Mystery Guest phoned from Upington,” Michael said. 

“Least we’re in the right town,” Scott said. 

“ _Four days ago,_ ” Baxter said, “ _Taljaard Ingh… Inch_ …” he gave up on the pronunciation, and Richmond filled it in for him. 

“ _Ingeneurswerke_ ,” she said.  “ _Engineering works_.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” he said to her.  “ _Four days ago, they got paid out of one of Nostromo’s accounts for completion of a job.  Half in advance three months ago, half now_.” 

“Those trucks have been in Upington all this time,” Scott guessed. 

“ _Looks like it_ ,” Baxter said. 

“ _Whatever Knox is planning, all his plans are coming together right now_ ,” Dalton said.  “ _The nukes, the trucks… the clock is ticking_.” 

“Why pay this Taljaard Unpronounceable chap at all?” Michael asked.  “He’s probably going to kill him anyway.”

“ _This seems to be Knox’s pattern_ ,” Dalton said.  “ _Pay them, then kill them_.”

“Yeah,” Scott said, sourly.  “Man’s like a fucking Lannister – always pays his fucking debts.  Afterward, he’ll have you shot, but hey, at least the cheque’s in the post.” 

“That makes no sense,” Michael said. 

“ _None of it makes any sense_.” Sinclair’s voice was mild.  “ _Nothing Knox has done has been the action of a rational man._ ” 

“ _Still, we’ve spotted a pattern_ ,” Dalton said.  “ _We have the chance to get ahead of the curve.”_

“ _If Knox keeps to his pattern, his men are planning to pay a visit to Taljaard, very soon_ ,” Sinclair said. 

“ _You’re going to go around to Taljaard_ ,” Dalton said.  “ _Find out  what you can regarding the job he did for Knox._ ”

“Roger that,” Michael said, grimly. 

“Stay in touch.   Over and out,” Richmond said. 

 

* * *

 

 

Scott got out of the Landcruiser.  The heat hit his face, sucking sweat out of his skin as soon as he came out of the cool bubble of the car’s aircon. 

“Fuck me, it’s hot,” he said, wiping his brow with his hand.  He took his sunglasses out of his breast pocket and put them on. 

“It’s a _desert,_ Scott,” Michael said.  “Deserts _are_ hot.” 

With a job to do, and a mission to carry out, Mikey was holding his act together again.  Inactivity seemed to bring on the glomp-swamps, Scott realized.  Give the guy something to do, and he seemed able to pack his problems away inside himself. 

Still, not _necessarily_ a good coping mechanism, unless he actually took the time to _un_ pack them again eventually. 

Steenbok Road looped down from the Main Road toward the river.  Alongside it ran one of Upington’s narrow canals, crossed by concrete driveways like drawbridges.  Scott detoured to the canal, and looked down into the water.  It was green, and smooth as glass. 

“Now, if you were a bad guy,” Scott said, “and if you were standing right about here, and if you found out you’d accidentally phoned up the good guys and given away your position … what would you do with your phone, Mr Byers?”

“I’d toss it in _there_ ,” Michael answered him.

“Congratulations!” Scott said.  “You win the Internet!” 

“Gosh, I’m so proud.” 

They walked up and down the length of the road, just in case the cellphone had come to rest along the edges anywhere. 

They weren’t alone in town.  Scott saw a fat old lady in a floral sundress coming in the other direction, with a pair of equally fat Jack Russells on leashes.  She saw Stonebridge gazing into the canal, and stopped to chat with him. 

She seemed charmed by his clean-cut face and lovely eyes.  They looked like they were going to get along - until they found out at the same time that she didn’t speak very much English, and Stonebridge didn’t speak any Afrikaans at all. 

Scott pressed his radio, and spoke, watching the little mime show of pointing and smiling. 

“We might need you, Bravo Three,” he said.  “Looks like our language barrier is worse than we thought.”

The old lady didn’t look upset, actually; she looked as if Stonebridge was the most adorable creature she’d seen all year, and she wanted to take him home and teach him to speak the Mother Tongue just like a real boy. 

“ _The area is predominantly Afrikaans-speaking_ ,” Richmond replied after a moment.  “ _Can you rub along with Dutch?_ ”

“I don’t think Mikey’s Dutch is good enough to rub anything bigger than his dick,” Scott said.  _Or mine_ , he thought quietly. 

Stonebridge’s new girlfriend gave him a parting pat on his arm, clucked to her little  ankle-biters, and waddled away. 

Scott walked over to him.  “She’s a bit old for you, buddy,” he said.  

“Fuck you, Scott.”

“She probably wanted you to come home with her and marry her daughter.  Put some pretty blond genes in the family.” 

“I’ll put my pretty blond fist in your teeth if you don’t shut up,”  Stonebridge said.  He put his sunglasses back on, hiding his face.

His pale cheeks had gone pink, and Scott laughed at him.  They walked along the road, side by side.  

“Here we go,” Scott said, as they made their way around the corner.  “Another hotel.”

“A lodge,” Michael corrected him, reading the sign on the wall. 

Paradise Lodge looked just as nice as Carpenters.  The drawbridge over the canal led through a wide gateway, shadowed with trees.  They could see palm leaves and lawns behind the gate, and thatched roofs.

“If I didn’t know better,” Scott said,  “I’d begin to think this town had a bit of a tourism thing going on.”

“This is where Mystery Guest called from,” Michael said. 

“Here-abouts, according to Richmond,” Scott corrected.

“Either he decided to park here just for the heck of it in the middle of the night – or he was staying there.”

“No hookers on _this_ street corner, dude.”  He turned on his heel, spreading his arms to all the streetwalkers who weren’t there. 

“All right,” Michael conceded.  “So he was staying in there.  Evidence that Knox doesn’t have his own base of operations in the area.”

“Or,” Scott fussed, playing devil’s advocate, “evidence that he _does_ have a base in the area.  And this is it.  Asshole could be watching us right now from in there.”  He turned and stared at the front gate.

“Only one way to find out, mate,” Michael said. 

They walked up to the gate, and rang the doorbell.  The receptionist let them in. 

“Hello there,” Michael said, smiling affably, and oozing up to the counter like Captain Smooth.  “We’ve just got into town.  A man possessed of passion is not bankrupt in this life?”  He slid the code phrase into the conversation as if it was a question.  

The receptionist didn’t miss a beat: didn’t show any sign that the phrase had ever meant anything to him.  “ _Ekskuus?_ ”  he asked, his eyebrows lowering at the meaningless phrase.  There was no sign of recognition or deceit in his expression, just puzzlement. 

“Oh, well, you know how it is,” Captain Smooth said. 

The man accepted this; must have put the odd phrase down to some inane Limey cultural reference.  “Ja, well,” he shrugged.  “What can I do for you?”  

“Is our Russian friend still here?” Scott asked. 

“Russian friend?” the receptionist said. 

“Yeah,” Scott said.  “Young guy?  Big, fit, talks with too many ‘ _the_ ’s.”

That brought a smile of recognition.  “Oh, ja!  Pavel.”

“Did we miss him?”  Michael said. 

They both knew how to play this game, Scott thought.  The trick to conning someone was building up a sense of normality, and then sliding into an atmosphere of hurray-we’re-all-nice-folks-here.  That way, one built a kind of rapport with the mark, so that the mark felt instinctively that he’d be acting like a dick if he suddenly refused to go along with the spiel. 

Push too hard, though, and you let the mark give himself self-permission to act like a paranoid unhelpful dickhead.  And then it’s all over; nice try but no intel. 

The receptionist shook his head.  “Sorry, _boet_ , you missed him.  They all left really early this morning.” 

“Checked out in a hurry, right?”

“Yes.  They just packed up and left.  How did you know?”

Scott chuckled, and bobbed on his toes happily.  “Yeah, we figured they would.  Our boss called Pavel up and shat him out on the phone.”

“I don’t suppose there was an Englishman with them,” Michael asked.  He propped up his elbow on the counter with a relaxed air that didn’t fool Scott for one second.  “Tall guy, about my height, short curly hair?” 

Scott wondered what would happen if the receptionist said Hanson was upstairs.  He didn’t think Michael wanted Hanson for his intelligence value.  Stonevengeance didn’t want anything from Hanson, other than his hands around Hanson’s throat. 

But it was a moot point.  “No Englishman,” the receptionist said.  “Just the three guys, and they both left this morning.” 

“Did Pavel leave anything behind?” Michael asked.  “We’re going to meet up with him soon, so if he’s left anything we’ll take it after him.” 

“No, he took all his stuff.”

“They didn’t say where they were going?”

“Naah.”

“Never mind,” Michael promised, still playing Captain Smooth,  “We’ll catch up with them on the road.”    

They walked out and went back to the Landcruiser. 

“Zero,” Scott said, as soon as they got back into the car.  “We’ve got a hit.  Mystery Guest’s going under the name of Pavel.  He’s been staying in the Paradise Lodge, but he checked out in a real hurry this morning.  And there are only two guys with him.”

 

* * *

 

 

Back in the Landcruiser, back on the road. 

The urban edge changed almost immediately to ranks of blocky houses, like pillboxes, each fenced inside its own sandy little plot with a few strands of wire.  And then in the blink of an eye they were driving through open countryside.  

They hadn’t made an appointment – they were just going to arrive and start shaking branches and see what fell out.  And if anything did fall out, Scott thought, things were going to get interesting.  Scott wore his body armour under his shirt, his 9mil at his side, and Hendricks’  Beretta around his ankle.

Scott’s eyes caught the little shape on the road shoulder in front of him.  “Yo, look what we’ve got,” he announced.  “It’s the Budweiser Clydesdales, out for a spin.” 

Michael looked up from his tablet as the Landcruiser whipped up to the other vehicle. 

The two donkeys were pulling a two-wheeled cart, their heavy heads bobbling up and down at the trot.  Their passengers sat with their knees up on the little footboard.  Going into town for the afternoon.  Maybe that was what passed for a booze-run in the Northern Cape?

“Huh,” Michael said, amused. 

Scott took a glance in his wing-mirror.  A third passenger, perched backwards with one leg hanging off the back, watched stolidly as the cart receded into the distance.  The cart had a little vehicle registration plate stuck to its back. 

“So tell me, professor,” Scott asked, as the cart disappeared behind them.  “How does that fit into your pony theory of economics?”

Michael jutted out his chin.  “Donkeys are in every way synonymous with skinny ponies,” he declared.

“All donkeys?”

“ _All_ donkeys,” the professor repeated, with a grave nod to his pupil. 

“So if it was, say, Oprah’s donkey…?”

“Oprah doesn’t have a donkey.”

“Ahh- _haaa_ ,” Scott said.  “So Oprah is sans-pony-class?” 

“Oprah’s donkey is a statistical outlier,” Michael said, and held up one finger.  “All _working_ donkeys are synonymous with skinny ponies.  Ponyconomics allows for full equivalencies of working equines.”

“Ponyconomics,”  Scott grinned at him.  “Heh.  I like it.” 

The landscape was flat, but dotted sparsely with trees.  All the vegetation looked dry and tired.  Anything here that was green had been intentionally irrigated; anything that hadn’t been irrigated got cooked to a dead khaki colour in the sun. 

“So, what is this?”  Michael asked. 

For a moment, he thought Mikey was talking about something in the car.  Scott took his eyes off the road, and glanced at him.  “What is what?”

One finger, waggled in the air between them.  “This.  Us.  What is it?  What do we call it?”

Scott shifted down a gear – the road was horrible, thumping the car’s suspension like air turbulence.  “We’ll call it Eunice,” he decided. 

“ _What?_ ”

“I had an aunt called Eunice.  Why does it need a label, for fucks’ sake?” 

Michael waved away his Aunt Eunice, shaking his head.  “Do you know what I think we are?”

He was sure he was going to be told, whether he wanted to hear it or not.  “No.”

“I think we’re Greek.”

“Yeah. Greek, sure.” 

“Take, for example, the Theban Sacred Band.  One hundred and fifty pairs of lovers.  But all tough guys. The idea behind the Theban Sacred Band was that a regiment made up out of pairs of lovers would have a tighter combat bond than a regiment of strangers.” 

“The ultimate buddy system.”

“Take Zeus and Ganymede.  They named the moons of Jupiter after Jupiter’s lovers – and Ganymede is a man.” 

Scott didn’t think he looked like _anyone’s_ idea of a Ganymede.  “If you say so, professor.” 

“Or the 300 Spartans …”

“Yeah …” Scott said.  “Thermopylae.  Wasn’t that left out of the movie?”

“Achilles and Patroclus…?”

“…That _was_ left out of the movie…”

“Alexander and Hephaistion…”

“…That was… no, that one was left _in_ the movie.  Colin fuckin’ Farrell, for the win.”

“The Ancient Greeks,” Michael went on, still firing on all-History-Channel cylinders, “believed you could only have a real deep mutual relationship with another man.”

“Yeah.  Look, I’m not really listening, buddy…”

“Men and women lived completely different lives.  Men went out and did things, and women stayed at home.  The ultimate civilians.  You couldn’t share any kind of real relationship with a woman, because she would have no grasp, no insight, no understanding of life outside her own home.” 

“Nice folks, the Ancient Greeks.” 

“And let’s be honest here, shall we?  Who in Civvy Street knows what it’s like to be us?  Who other than Special Forces understands Special Forces?”

“Buddy,” Scott said.  “If the rest of the world understood Special Forces, we wouldn’t _be_ Special Forces, we’d be the fuckin’ Beatles.” 

“So here we are.  This is what this is, Scott.  We’re the last of the Theban Sacred Band.  What do you think?”

It had a nice ring to it.  It sounded better than man-whore.  It sounded a whole lot better than fag.  Not that he’d ever let Stonehenge know that he was onto something. 

“I think you’re full of shit.”

“Yes,” Michael conceded, “but _apart_ from that…?”

He wasn’t going to let go.  Scott scrunched up his mouth.  “You think too much.  You gotta feel what you feel, doesn’t matter what you _call_ it.”

“Labels are important,” Michael insisted.  “If you label a thing, you own that thing.”

“There’re only _so_ many ways you can label something.  You gotta _feel_ the thing, to get anywhere.  No feels, no reals.  But hey, it’s okay.  If that’s what you want to tell yourself, be my guest.”

“That’s what I’m going to tell myself,” Michael agreed.  “We’re the last of the Thebans.” 

“Last of the Spartans sounds more badass.”

“Last of the Spartans, then.”

“Okay, Leonidas.  Hold onto your olives.  We’re here.”  He steered the Landcruiser into a wide gateway. 

They’d looked at Taljaard Unpronounceable on the satellite images.  They’d seen a  grey roof and a wide plot of concrete.  Now they could see that the roof covered a white warehouse, with three gaping garage doors set into it.  An office block sat along one side of the warehouse.   The rest of of the property was a huge yard, with a few parked trucks and trailers and odds-and-ends of equipment in it.  In the sun, the white walls glared at their retinas, reflecting the sun’s ferocity. 

Scott pulled up the Landcruiser, and they got out. 

“Zero, Bravo One,” Scott said.  “We’ve got an office on the north corner of the building.  We’re going inside now.” 

“ _Roger that, Bravo One.  Put us on hot vox.”_

“Hot vox, copy that.”  He turned his radio to transmit. 

They walked along to the warehouse, and went in through what looked like the only door intended for customers weighing less than a couple of tons. 

Inside, the building was cool with air-con.  They found themselves in a reception area.  A woman behind a low counter wore a headset and a tightly-laquered perm, and she was tapping away at a computer.  She looked up as they opened the door, and did a visible double-take at the sight of strangers.  She got to her feet.  “Good morning, how can I help you today?” 

“Hello,” Michael said, taking the lead.  “Can we speak to Mr Havenga, please?” 

“Who shall I say is calling?” 

“My name’s Byers, he’s Langley.  We work for Interpol.  We would like a word with Mr Havenga, in private.” 

“Interpol?” 

Scott pulled out his ID, and flicked it at her.  “Interpol, sweetheart,” he drawled.  “It’s real important.” 

She moved her hand to her phone, and dialled an extension in the building.  The chatter was one-sided and in Afrikaans, but Scott caught the word Interpol. 

A moment later, she refocused her eyes on them.  “Mr Havenga is coming down to you.” 

It didn’t take long.  The man who walked in was the new manager of Taljaard Unpronounceable, since the original Taljaard had croaked from a heart attack five years ago.   Scott had seen Havenga’s picture on Richmond’s intel-dump, but in person the man was redder in the face and more sweaty.  Or perhaps it was just the magic of the word ‘Interpol’ drawing instant paranoia out of him. 

“Hello, hello.  John Havenga, what can I do for you gentlemen?”  His hand came out for a handshake, and Michael shook it first.

“My name’s Byers,” Michael said, “This is Mr Langley.”

Havenga’s hand was hot and sweaty.  “We’re here from Interpol,” Scott said.  “Can we talk?”

“Ja, ja, come up to my boardroom, please.  This way.”

They went through glass doors, and around a corner.  The boardroom was decorated with a few framed photographs of ambulances and tractor-trailers.  One side of the room had a strip of windows that looked out onto the floor of the garage.  There was a large panel-van down there, but nothing was happening on it.   

The room sent a message, but the message was a little desperate.  On one hand, it was trying to look as professional and commercial as possible.  On the other hand, there didn’t seem to be much happening anywhere on the other side of the glass.  The panel-van had half its panels missing: an interrupted work-in-progress. 

 _Recession in progress_ , Scott guessed.  _Economy reloading, please wait._

Havenga seated them around the corner of the table.  “Would you like tea?  Coffee?” 

“We’d rather just get down to business,” Michael said, all brisk deceit. 

“What can I do for you gentlemen?”  he asked again. 

“We’re from Interpol, working on an international arms-trading scam, and we’re following a lead.”

“Here?” Havenga asked, surprised.  “In Upington?”

“Crime reaches all corners, buddy,” Scott said, flicking his eyebrows up and down.  They were going to play good-cop-bad-cop again, he saw, and this time it was his turn to play good cop. 

“We’re trying to trace a terrorist organisation called Nostromo,” Michael said.  “Does that name mean anything to you?”

 “My company never deals with crime in any form,” Havenga said.  “We have a strict…”

“Oh, no, course not,” Scott assured him, picking up the good-cop end of the game.  “You guys are just the innocent bystanders.”

Havenga relaxed at the reassurance from the good-cop. 

“This group is exceptionally dangerous, and they’re using you,” Michael said.  “We believe your company has been used as a dupe, by this group.” 

“What makes you think they’re using _us?_ ” 

“We’re tracking four forty-foot trucks that were stolen from Cape Town with a highly sensitive cargo,” Michael said.  “We believe they’re here in the Northern Cape.  We have evidence that leads us to think they’ve been in your hands up until very recently.” 

“Four trucks?” Havenga said.  His brows rose toward his widow’s peak.  “I’ve had four trucks in here, but they’re not the trucks you’re looking for.” 

“Four forty-foot trucks?  Shipping container trucks?”

“Ja, we just handed them over to their owner.”

“ _When?_ ” Michael, his voice just this side of a bark.

“Thursday.” 

“How long were they here?”

“About three months.” 

“What work did you do on them?”

“That’s a private business dealing between Taljaard and their owners, but I can assures you, they’re not your trucks.” 

“What makes you think so?  
“Because the four trucks I got belong to _Conrad Knox_.  _The_ Conrad Knox,”  Havenga made a polite little laugh.  “So you see, there has obviously been a mistake.” 

“What sort of work did you do for Conrad Knox, on these trucks?”

“You’re going to have to ask Conrad Knox that yourself.”  Havenga was stiffening, disbelief and self-interest combining to make him defend his client.  “Now, wait.  You can’t be saying that Conrad Knox is mixed up with terrorism?” 

“That’s exactly what we’re saying,” Michael said. 

“No,” Havenga shook his head.  “That’s impossible.”

“Listen, I know this is real hard to believe,” Scott put in.  “But Knox is involved with some seriously dangerous people.  And you’re involved, and you’re not safe as long as this group is out there.” 

“Can’t be.”

“Believe it; it’s the truth,” Scott said.  “We’re going to need your help to put a stop to them.” 

“We need to know everything about these trucks,” Michael said.  “When you last saw them, what you did with them, registration numbers, everything.” 

“You’re wrong,” Havenga said.

“We have proof,” Scott said, patiently. 

 “Well, then, your proof is just wrong!  Conrad Knox is like a saint.  He builds hospitals for the Darkies all over Africa.  They love him.  They even name their little Darkie kiddies after him.” 

It struck Scott that Havenga wasn’t even using the word with intentional malice.  Casual conversational racism: what fun.  He could almost _hear_ Sinclair’s expression on the other end of the radio. 

Michael persisted, leaning forward over the table to make his point clear.  “Conrad Knox is connected with Nostromo, and they are dangerous.  These are armed and dangerous criminals, and they’re systematically slaughtering everyone they have dealings with to cover their tracks.  You are in danger, Mr Havenga – you and all your staff.” 

“Now, listen-here,” Havenga said, pushing back his chair and shooting to his feet.  “You’re sitting here making wild accusations and slanders about one of my clients.  And this is _Conrad Knox_.  Why on earth would you go accusing a man like that of nonsense like this?  I don’t know why you’re here, but you have to leave, now.” 

“Mr Havenga…”  Scott said.  “These guys _killed_ the drivers of those trucks to get their hands on them.  These are seriously scary fuckers, and you don’t want to mess with them.  Help us, and we can help you.”

But good-cop had lost all traction.  Havenga didn’t soften, didn’t relax his wariness, in response to his tone.  “I’m sure they are, but they’re not anywhere near here,” Havenga said. 

“They’ll contact you,” Scott promised.   “Soon.  And when they do, give us a call.” 

“I will not,” Havenga said.  “You make accusations of a man like Conrad Knox, and you expect me to help you smear his good name?  This discussion is over.”  He moved to the door, opened it and waited for them to leave.  “You have to leave.  Now.  Before I call my security.” 

“ _For fuck’s sake!  What fucking part of DANGEROUS don’t you fucking understand!_ ” Mikey blared, suddenly exploding into full volume.  He slammed his fist into the table. 

 _Here we go again…_ Scott was already on his feet. 

“ _Conrad Knox is a fucking terrorist!  He fucking pays murderers to kill people!”_

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he chanted, cupping his hand around one arm, holding him back with his touch.   

 Mikey’s bicep was like iron, vibrating with adrenalin and rage.  He was seconds away from a smashing rage; heartbeats away from opening fire.  Just like that fucking bus, Scott thought. 

Mikey pointed at Havenga past Scott, the anger bunching up his jaw.  “We have to make him listen!” he barked. 

“We ain’t going to make him do anything,” Scott ordered.  “Come on, we’re outta here.”  

He put his hand under Mikey’s elbow, coaxing him to the door, and Mikey let himself be steered.  Reluctant as a bull in a chute, but moving, and not hitting anyone.  Scott kept the pressure up, and followed Mikey out. 

“We’ll be back,” he promised Havenga, as he passed the man in the doorway. 

“No, you won’t,”  Havenga said. 

Scott let that slide.  He’d heard that before.  He would be back, and he was as sure of that as he was that Knox’s killers would be back too.  He didn’t take his hand off Mikey’s rigid back, to stop him turning around and giving Havenga both barrels again. 

Havenga followed them out past the receptionist.  “Clara,” he said to the receptionist, and gave her a rapid splatter of angry Afrikaans. 

Scott would bet five to ten that had been ‘Don’t let these assholes in again.’ 

He kept the his palm flat, so that he could keep the pressure deep and even.  “We’re outta here, buddy,” he said, his voice low.  Mikey kept up the rigidity, but at least he didn’t stop and go back for a smashing-match, and in a moment they were back in the sunshine. 

He took his hand off Mikey’s back as they crossed to the car. 

“Well, that went real well,” he gloomed. 

“Fucking stupid … fucking close-minded … stupid fucking…!” Michael muttered to the ground, and then he stopped, and glared at Scott with small eyes that didn’t quite focus properly.  “We should have stayed there and smashed the intel out of him!”

“Yeah, great idea,” Scott scoffed.  “Let’s fight our way through a whole shitload of mechanics and the entire Upington SAPS.  _That’ll_ help us stay undercover.” 

Michael didn’t reply.  He just knotted and unknotted his fists, his jaw like a rock, and Scott guessed that the thought of smashing up a bunch of Upington cops sounded real therapeutic to Michael Stonebridge right now. 

Scott stared at him coldly, trying to freeze the idea out of Mikey’s head.  He put his hand on his radio.  “Zero, did you get all that?”

“ _We copied it Lima Charlie, Bravo One_ ,” Richmond said. 

“We’ve got a serious problem,” Scott said,  “if that’s how _everyone_ reacts to being told about Nostromo.” 

“ _New orders, Bravo Team.  You’re going to return after dark, and make a forward reconnaissance, in depth_.”

“With pleasure,” Michael growled. 


	2. Chapter 2

## MONDAY AFTERNOON

## UPINGTON, NORTHERN CAPE.

 

When they walked into Carpenters Guesthouse, the receptionist looked up, and called them over. 

“Here’s your key, Mr Byers,” she said, holding out the card.  “Room Twenty-Five.”   

“Thank you,” Stonebridge said.  He took the card from her.  He wasn’t next door to Scott, but at least they were both on the same floor.  His room was just a tip-toe and a quiet knock away from Scott’s. 

“I’ll move my things out after we’ve checked in with Zero,” he told Scott. 

“Yeah,” Scott shrugged.  “No hurry.”  

Stonebridge’s heart jiggled happily to hear that Scott wasn’t in a hurry.  He was in no real hurry to move into his own room either.  He might be just a tip-toe away down the corridor, but that was already too far away for spontaneous kissing and touching.

He followed Scott up to Scott’s room. 

Scott looked implacable and inscrutable.  His sunglasses hid his eyes, and his mouth was set.  The macho swagger was back, in the sway of his shoulders and the swing of his boots, and there was no sign now of what they’d shared in the shower.  It was as if Scott had packed softness and sex away in a little box marked Not Now. 

He’d had Scott naked and wet and dizzy with sexual pleasure, but there was no sign of that vulnerability now.   Scott was as macho as he’d ever been. 

It was one of the most arousing things Stonebridge had ever seen.  He wanted to throw himself at that machismo.  He wanted to break down that barrier, and get at the sexual animal hidden inside.  Something inside Stonebridge was shivering with excitement. 

He waited for Scott to close the door, all civilised - and then turned on him.  He seized Scott’s shirt in both hands, and rammed him up against the built-in closet so that his back slammed into the door and the coathangers inside rattled. 

“Whoa, tiger!” Scott said, laughing.  He’d clearly been expecting something; both arms had come out as he collided with the door, breaking the force of his impact.  He rocked his head back and laughed into Stonebridge’s face.  “You’re eager!”  he huffed, delighted, against Stonebridge’s face.

“You!” Stonebridge said, into his face.  He was close enough to see the flecks of blue in his eyes, and smell his last cigarette.  He raised one finger and pressed it against Scott’s stubbled cheek.  He stroked the finger to Scott’s chin, to rest on the little cleft in his chin where his beard was a shade darker.    “Want some more?  Yeah?” 

“Heh!” Scott said, and grinned even wider.  “Yeah.”

 “Good.” 

He didn’t let go of Scott’s shirt.  He simply leaned in and grabbed at Scott’s mouth with his own.

God, but kissing a man was different!  He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to the difference.  It was the difference between a nice sparkling rosé and three fingers of  Laphroaig – both fantastic, but _oh,_ so fantastically different!  

Scott’s mouth was prickly, scraping at him where they met, and his breath was smoky.  He drove back into the kiss as if challenging him to kiss harder.  They fought for access to each other’s mouths, a brief battle for dominance, which Stonebridge won.  He had Scott pinned where he wanted him.  Scott was all his.  He explored Scott’s teeth with his tongue, breathed his breath. 

They parted to gasp.  Scott’s breath was coming in and out through his nose in urgent little whinnies, and his hands were digging into Stonebridge’s sides.  

Stonebridge opened his eyes for a quick visual check. 

Scott’s lips lolled open in a lazy smile.  “Yeah, _that_ I like,” he drawled.  He set his head back against the closet door, and laughed at Stonebridge through narrow eyes. 

“Good,” Stonebridge said.  He pressed one hand against the side of Scott’s face to hold him steady, under his control, and then dived in for another long kiss. 

He had control here; he had Scott right where he wanted him; he had command of this kiss.  Gentleness was his to dispense as he chose, and he decided to be generous.  This kiss was slower, gentler. 

Scott pushed back, trying to raise the stakes again, but Stonebridge simply took a firmer grasp, shifting his hand so that his fingers cupped Scott’s jaw, preventing him from taking the lead.  He broke the contact just long enough to breathe, “Don’t,” into Scott’s mouth.  Scott was his, and he would command, and he would be gentle. 

Scott subsided into the kiss, yielding.

Gentle kisses.  He used his lips to stroke Scott’s mouth open.  He used his tongue to probe.  Scott stood quite still, only his mouth moving. His palms, pressed to Stonebridge’s back, were quite still, but Stonebridge could feel his rapid breathing, the way his ribs came out and in, out and in, in a quick pulse against his. 

He broke the kiss again and stepped back.  His left hand was still knotted around Scott’s shirt, and he stepped backwards, yanking Scott after him. 

Scott let himself be led into the bedroom.  He let Stonebridge draw him over to the bed, and stepped up obediently into Stonebridge’s arms.  Stonebridge leaned in for a kiss, then hooked a leg behind Scott’s knee and tried to shove Scott back onto the bed. 

And _then_ the battle started.  Combat _a la boudoir_. 

Neither wanted to be on the bottom.  Neither wanted to give up control.  Neither wanted to yield to the other. 

They hit the bed in a tangle.  They hammered into each other, writhing with muscular speed like snakes.  Their hands grabbed for purchase on each other’s bodies, trying to twist so that they had the upper hand.    His weight on Scott, then Scott twisting, and Scott’s weight on his.  A block, a blow, and his weight was on Scott …

Scott had always been a match for him.  Scott had always been his mirror, ever since the Royal Lotus.  They were as close as separated twins, psychically in tune, in a way that Stonebridge had never felt with any man. 

They had been raised on different continents, trained separately, fought in different armies, but somehow Scott complemented him perfectly.  They fitted each other, as if they were two pieces of a matched set reunited.  In battle, their differences counted each other out, the one’s weakness being made whole by the other’s strengths, while their similarities allowed each to predict the other, take the same actions at the same time, act as _one_. 

Now, their training was put to a new and thrilling purpose.  Each strike would have broken any man who hadn’t been trained for it, any man who wasn’t their equal in the arts of death and power.

Sex was like wrestling: hey, who’d have guessed? 

He found himself winning at the same time that he realized Scott had let him win.    Awareness and victory flooded his mind at the same time.  He found himself kneeling on top of Scott, one knee pressed down on his chest and one hand pressing down on his shoulder.  

Scott let his arms drop out to his sides, and lay panting, on his back.  Stonebridge had him where he wanted him – but only because Scott wanted to be there.  Scott grinned up at him.

“Prick,” Stonebridge grunted through his teeth. 

“Thought you liked my prick,” Scott grinned.

“I do!” Stonebridge exulted.  “I want to prove it…” 

“Oh, yeah?” 

His erection surged back, now that it wasn’t in danger of getting accidentally thumped.  Scott’s body under him was deliciously hot and solid, and he wanted more of it.  Stonebridge let go of his arm, and rocked over backwards to sit up.  He shifted  his weight to his other leg, so that he could take his knee off Scott’s sternum and kneel astride him.  He raised himself up, one knee on either side of Scott’s broad body, looking down at him. 

“I’ve been told I’m too rough,” he admitted.  

“Yeah, a little,” Scott said.  He turned his head, tilting his face.  His eyebrows came up.  “Then again, I’m tough…” 

Stonebridge found himself smiling at the little-boy mischief in Scott’s eyes.  He raised his hands in a little _wai_.  “May I jump your bones, Sergeant Scott?”  he asked, with mock politeness.   

“Hmmm.”   Scott moved his hands to Stonebridge’s knees where they rested on either side of his hips.  “Lemme think about that,” he said, his fingers running up Stonebridge’s thighs. 

The touch made Stonebridge’s erection swell back to its previous strength.  “Don’t think about it too long,” he advised.  He bent over, set his hands on the bed on either side of Scott’s head, and lowered his face to Scott’s.  His mouth sought out Scott’s. 

The kiss was slow, and gentle.  He was aware that he was pinning Scott down, holding the higher ground, and that the onus was on him to be gentle.  Scott seemed more hesitant than he had been earlier, his lips not driving up to meet his as urgently as before.  His hands stayed down, at his sides, accepting the kiss without demanding more. 

Stonebridge broke the kiss.  “All right?” he asked. 

Scott pursed his lips, as if he didn’t really know how to answer that.  But then his eyes cleared, as if he was coming to a decision. 

His arms reached up, and took a good grip of the front of Stonebridge’s shirt.  He pulled, dragging on the fabric, drawing Stonebridge down to him. 

To save his shirt from being torn, Stonebridge obeyed.  He lay down, holding Scott’s gaze, letting himself down on his elbows gently.  He stretched out one leg at a time, letting Scott take his weight until he lay fully along Scott’s body.  Their legs dovetailed, their bodies pressed parallel, eye to eye, and chest to chest.  

When he was fully on top of Scott, their faces so close that he could feel Scott’s breath on his lips, so close that he could see the flecks of texture in Scott’s irises, see each hair of his beard on his lips, he spoke again. 

“Comfy?” he breathed, just to make sure Scott didn’t mind being squashed like this.   

“Yeah,” Scott murmured.  He raised his arms and wrapped them around Stonebridge’s neck, holding him close, locking them together.

Stonebridge could feel Scott’s fingers at the nape of his neck, but he couldn’t feel any hardness against his lower belly.  Well, he could do something about that. 

He brought his left elbow up alongside Scott’s head, and rolled his weight to his left.  His right hand was free to explore the body pinned under his.   He shifted his hand to Scott’s chest, and felt for the first button on his shirt. 

Scott’s eyes closed, and he rolled his head back on the duvet. 

“Gorgeous, you,” Stonebridge whispered. 

He slipped another button open, one-handed.  He folded back the collar of Scott’s shirt, exposing the corner between his neck and his shoulder.  He leaned down, and explored the complex pattern of tendons and muscles there with his lips. 

“Beautiful.” 

He felt the response shiver through Scott’s body under him, felt something alive move against the front of his trousers. 

Another button, then.  He slipped his hand into the front of his shirt, reaching across the hairy wall of his chest for his nipple.  He found the little nub of pink flesh, and rolled it between his finger and thumb until he felt it grow close and firm.  He mouthed his way down Scott’s shoulder, and purred against the warm skin there.  “Lovely, you.  Lovely.” 

Scott was moving, under him.  His breathing was beginning to quicken.  Stonebridge raised his head to check on Scott’s face.  His eyes were still closed, but his eyebrows were raised, as if he was listening to some deep distant music.  His lips parted, as if he was about to say something, but words had failed him. 

Stonebridge went up for another kiss.  He met Scott’s lips, hot and wet, and prised them open, and dived in with his tongue to ransack his mouth.  Scott let him, opened himself up, his lips melding with Stonebridge with astonishing, silken subtlety. 

And Scott broke the kiss, turned his mouth away, fumbled for words.  “Clothes… too many clothes…”  he muttered.  “Off…”

“That can be arranged,” Stonebridge said. 

He pushed up and away, breaking Scott’s grip around his neck.  He sat up again, astride Scott’s body, arched his spine, and used both arms to pull his T-shirt over his head.  He pulled the neck over his head, flicked it off his arms, and tossed the shirt away across the room. 

The air-con was icy on his skin, on the blood thrumming in his veins, and his nipples tightened.  He was beautiful, and he knew it, and he paused and looked down on Scott. 

Scott’s head was turned to the side, measuring him up.  Stonebridge watched his gaze run up his body, from one flank across his breast, to the other flank.  His mouth was open, in a dazed half-smile.  “Oh, yeah.”

Stonebridge’s hands moved to his belt, sliding the tongue through the loops.  He pulled the belt completely out of his trousers and sent it flipping after the T-shirt.  His erection was painful, it was so eager for this. 

Scott lay under him, watching his movements.  His eyes were wide, and his tongue ran over his lips.  As Stonebridge’s fingers started on the button of his trousers, eager to release his dick, Scott coughed.  “If you’re going to be naked, I want to be naked too.”

“All right.” Stonebridge climbed off his body, giving him space.  Then he climbed all the way off the bed, pushing down his trousers and underpants. 

He stood up and watched, as Scott got up onto his knees in the middle of the bed, and pulled his shirt over his head without bothering with time-consuming subtleties like buttons.  Stonebridge stepped out of his trousers, as Scott flipped his shirt away across the room. 

Then Scott’s hands were on his belt.  His shuddering eagerness seemed to make him fumble, flubbing the simple movements.  Unbuckling that belt seemed agonisingly slow, as if he was finding a jam in an HMG and freeing it and laying it on an enemy under heavy fire – too slow, too slow.  And _then_ Scott had to bring his legs around and sit on the end of the bed in front of Stonebridge, and bend over to start fretting free the tightly straight-laced boots…

Stonebridge could take it no more.  That arched back demanded touch! 

He stepped away from his trousers, heedless of his nakedness.  He leaned over Scott’s lowered head, set his hands on either side of the bowed neck.  His palms ran over and down the bulky shoulders, feeling the hot muscle under his hands.  He ran his hand up the back of Scott’s neck, feeling the cords of tendon there, and cupped the back of his head, feeling the short prickle of his hair where it was clipped short at his nape.  He pressed a kiss to the point of Scott’s shoulder, and started nibbling with his lips, along the top of his trapezius muscle.  Their necks arched together, his over Scott’s, Scott’s against his chest, like a pair of horses.  Scott’s back was arched down in front of him, the twin blades of his back an elegant inviting curve. 

He ran his hands down the smooth planes of Scott’s muscled torso.  Scott’s skin was smooth down his back, hairless in comparison with his chest and stomach.  He watched his own fingers run around Scott’s waist, and stroke down his ribs. 

The beauty of it took his breath away.  His hands were shaking, slightly, overcome with lust, but he took his time. 

Scott’s boots came off, and thumped on the floor, tossed away.    
Scott’s head lifted up, angling up out of Stonebridge’s chest, his face lifting, seeking.  His hands came up, reaching up for Stonebridge, and he felt warm hands curl around his neck and find a purchase on his shoulders.  Scott used him as a lever to pull himself up to his feet, coming up to his full height facing him. 

Then they were face to face again, eye to eye, bare chest to bare chest, nakedness to nakedness.  His smooth pecs, against Scott’s hairy column of torso.  Scott’s arms around him, Scott’s breath against his cheeks. They were naked together … and Scott shifted closer so that they were touching all down their front. 

They were naked, completely naked and vulnerable, without even the warm curtain of water around them.  He could feel Scott’s erection, close against his stomach, and he could feel his penis digging into a wall of rock-hard abdomen. 

He rested his hands on Scott’s flanks and smiled at him, struck by the impish beauty of his cheeks, his short nose, his eyes, his brow. 

“Hey,” Scott said, sounding surprised to find himself so close to Stonebridge, and grinned.  Slightly bucked teeth, and Stonebridge reached out to taste them with a kiss.  Smoky breath. 

He gathered Scott’s body up in his arms, and pushed him.  Scott let himself backward onto the mattress, drawing Stonebridge down to him into his arms.  He followed him down, getting up onto the mattress, his knees either side of Scott’s body.  Kiss, kiss, kiss - his lips, his chin, the end of his nose. 

Then he broke the kiss, and pushed himself up on his arms.  “Do you know what I want to do?” he asked. 

“I don’t know, what do you want to do?”  Scott asked, from below him.  His hands ran across Stonebridge’s pecs, plucked at his nipples. 

The tweak made him jerk, as if he was a puppet on a string.  Nipples and spine and dick joined on a single hot cord of pleasure.  “God!” he gasped, his back arching and his eyes wincing closed.

“Oh, you _like_ that?”

“Christ, Scott!” 

Another tweak.  Another jerk.  “Heh-heh-heh!” 

He looked down.  His erection was standing out like an obelisk.  As he watched, a droplet of pre-come rose like a pearl, and dribbled down onto Scott’s abdomen.  Scott’s erection was somewhere beneath him, under him.  He was riding Scott, astride, as if Scott was a mustang, his testicles resting on Scott’s stomach.  He could feel Scott’s breathing under his thighs. 

Another tweak, another jerk.  He reached up both hands, and clamped them on Scott’s.  He pulled Scott’s hands away from his chest, and directed them down.  “Here,” he rasped.  “I want… I want you to…” 

Scott opened his fingers and took a firm hold on his erection.  His thumb on his slit, his fingers braced around him.  “Like this?”  he said, flashing the impish grin, and gave his dick a slow gliding pull.  Another droplet lifted out of his slit. 

“Oh, shi-i-i-!”  The surge of pleasure sent a jolt of fire up his spine to his brain. 

He opened his eyes, and hitched in a breath at the view spread out under him.  Scott’s chest, the swirl of hair patterning down to his belly,  the stubbled face, the weave of tendons in his arm and elbow.  Magnificent view: a man of aggression and violence and glorious strength, under him and eager for him.  He wanted to come looking at that.  He was going to come, he needed to come, but he knew with the clarity of absolute white-hot lust _exactly_ how he wanted it. 

“Pearl necklace,” he gasped. 

Scott’s eyebrows quirked up.  “You want to come _on_ me?”

“I want to come on you,” he said.  His throat was dry.  “I want to come on your chest… God!” 

The cry was wrung out of him by another gentle pull, and the feeling of Scott’s fingers gently massaging some of his own pre-come around for lubrication.   

“I’ll do you…” Scott said.  “You do me.” 

“Yeah…” he panted, eagerly.  He leaned back, propping his weight on one hand, and reached back and down for Scott’s erection. 

He found it, hot and hard, and bobbling slightly.  He explored with his fingers, discovering by feel how he lay against thigh and testicles.  He folded his fingers around it, took a secure grip, and was gratified to see Scott’s eyes lose focus and his adam’s apple bob. 

He used his fingers around Scott’s head to draw a little bit of moisture out, as lubrication, and gave Scott a gentle pull. 

Scott’s thighs twitched under him, the muscles of his belly contracting.  He shut his eyes, as if he was listening to beautiful music, the corners of his mouth crooking up.  His fingers took a pull on Stonebridge. 

He was riding Scott with one hand behind him, like a cowboy riding a bronc with one hand raised in the air.  And the bronc was riding him in turn, his hand wrapped around Stonebridge.  It took a few thrusts to settle into a good rhythm, pull for pull.  Steady and slow, they found their pace, and settled in, up and down, strong and sure. 

God, this felt good.  He arched his neck, throwing his head back.  The muscles of his arm shook, holding him upright, trying to ride his pleasure while keeping his balance. 

The stomach under Stonebridge was jerking, trying to thrust.  He could feel Scott in his hand, feel the rhythm he was giving Scott.  And Scott’s hand was matching his rhythm. 

The pleasure riffed to a higher pitch at every thrust, drummed with the beat of Scott’s hand.  His eyes rolled back, his eyelids squeezing shut. The pressure thumped in his veins.  The urge to thrust, to throw himself over the edge, grew in him with every jack.   His need rose with every beat, choked his brain, but he forced himself to keep his head.  He had to keep his balance.  He had to keep up his rhythm.  He had to match Scott.  The pleasure boiled inside, bubbled, bottled like a volcano by the pressure of keeping the rhythm.  The liquid fire crackled, crackled, crackled. 

He was going to come … his mouth fell open, gasping.  He panted – _in-out-in-out_.  He was close!  He was going to come!     

He rolled his head forward, at the last second: forced his eyes open, and looked at Scott. 

Scott’s eyes were wild, his teeth gritted, the tendons of his neck straining like a glorious animal.

And Stonebridge came.  He came with a shock, the pleasure exploding on the summit and roaring right off the edge.  He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.  There was nothing in the world in that second but the face below him and the pulsing down his shaft, the fire of his release. 

He was coming in forceful spurts, the spasms wringing themselves out of him.  “Ah!  Ah!  Ah!”  He couldn’t hold it back.  His spine tried to jerk with the shocks.  “Uhhh-oooohhhm!” he groaned, his back arching around the centre of his release. 

And then suddenly he _had_ come, and he could breathe again.  He opened his eyes, and there were creamy droplets all over Scott’s chest.  He found his breath, and found his mind, and the world came back. 

He was still sitting on Scott, with his hand giving Scott his turn.  And Scott’s chest hair was coated with his semen.

Scott’s eyes were beginning to refocus.  His hands were still busy, still tugging, but his eyes were coming back into focus.  He hadn’t reached that cliff yet, but Stonebridge had lost his rhythm with the impact of his own climax. 

Stonebridge re-took his grasp.  He caught up the rhythm, his eyes on Scott. 

Scott’s chest was covered with semen, shining in the light.  And his chest was beginning to lift in pleasure, arching himself up.  He was going to add his own semen in a matter of seconds. 

Stonebridge moved.  He wanted to see it.  He lifted himself up onto his knees and shifted backward so that Scott was in front of him and not behind him. 

He could do this and watch it happen.  He watched Scott’s face, watched Scott’s dick, watched the pleasure rise.  He saw Scott close his eyes, squeeze his face shut, arch his neck back like an animal.  Scott was making little grunts, and then he felt the waves of pressure passing through Scott’s dick.  He could feel his climax happening against his hand.  And he watched the pulsing spurt of semen jet out and dribble thickly onto Scott’s own stomach. 

“Uhhh,” Scott subsided.  His neck softened, and the muscles of his belly relaxed, slowly.  He softened in Stonebridge’s hand, even as his body sagged with satisfaction against the mattress. 

“God,” Scott breathed. 

“Glad you liked it,” he whispered. 

Scott’s eyes opened again, and he looked at Stonebridge in dazed surprise, as if he’d forgotten for a moment where he was.  The surprise was comical, cute even, and the affection rose inside him. 

He trailed his finger in the cream on Scott’s stomach.  Their seed was united, lying on Scott in thick droplets.   “There we are,” he said.  “You and me.”

“NATO…”  Scott said, and chuckled. 

The seed was threatening to run off the side of his stomach.  “Don’t move.”  Stonebridge leaned over the bed to the box of facial tissues on the bed-side table.  He fetched a handful, and used them to clean Scott up.

Scott lay on his back, his arms at his sides, and watched him mop up all traces.  Stonebridge trailed a last tissue around his navel, making sure he’d cleaned it all up.  He dropped the soggy ball of tissues into the waste-paper basket.  He’d flush them later, but right now he felt too warm and lazy to get up.  He pressed a kiss to the side of Scott’s navel, and lowered himself to lie at Scott’s side. 

“Well, _that_ was nice,” Stonebridge said. 

“Nice?” Scott harrumphed, derisively.  “ _Nice_ , was it?”

“Oh, all right.  It was great.”  He thought about snuggling with his head on Scott’s shoulder, but since he was considerably broader than Scott, he realized he would look like a bear snuggling up with a small dog. 

He rolled over onto his back, alongside Scott, found Scott’s hand, and wove his fingers with Scott’s.  In high school, this had been called ‘proper holding hands.’ It was juvenile, but he felt like he was back in high school, giddy with sexual discovery and growth, and proper holding hands felt like the right thing to do.

“Someone said something interesting to me a few days ago,” Scott said, half to himself. 

“Yeah?”  Stonebridge said. 

“The deepest darkest secret of physically fighting another man … is how intimate it is.”  Scott turned his hand inside his, stroking the back of Stonebridge’s thumb. 

“Oh, tosh.” 

“It’s true,” Scott insisted.  “When you fight, you get to feel another man closer than any other time – feel his muscles, feel his skin, feel his breath – like dancing.”

“Hmm.” 

Dancing, fighting, fucking… Stonebridge could see how it was all one to Damien Scott.  And of course, Scott was good at all three.  Some people just had _all_ the mad skills…

“Now what?” Scott said.  “Do you want to get up and spar?” 

“We’ll attract attention.”

 “We’ve got…” Scott checked his watch, “five more hours until it gets dark.”

“Well…” Stonebridge smiled up at the ceiling, “There is this one thing I’ve been wanting to do for a few days now…”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Oh, definitely,” Stonebridge said.  “You’ve been adding to my education.  I think it’s time I return the favour…”

 

* * *

 

 

Sinclair walked up to the light-table, and Dalton looked up from her scrutiny of Stellar Arabian’s accounts to see him watching her closely.  “You have something?”

“I’ve just been in contact with London, and my friend in Section Six told me something he thought I’d find very interesting.”

“Let’s hear it?”

“There’s an office in London that keeps tabs on the Dark Web.  If the bad guys are using the Tor Project and hanging out their shingles on the Silk Road, Section Six wants to be there too.”

“I know a little bit about online surveillance, Major; let’s skip to the crib-notes, shall we?”

“Apparently, the word on the forums and chatrooms is, don’t take the Cape Town job, the Shark in the Dark says the SAS is all over it like an itchy rash, and it’s going to turn into a shitstorm.  His choice of words.” 

“Who’s the Shark in the Dark?” 

“According to MI6, the Shark in the Dark was a bomber, active in Central and South America.  _Was_ \- hasn’t been active in years,” Sinclair said.  “MI6 thinks he, or she, is dead.  The interesting thing is that the Shark was suspected of being a CIA assassin, but no-one knows for certain.”

“Christy Bryant works for the CIA…” Dalton said.  “We knew she was here in Cape Town.  And she’d know we’re following those triggers.” 

“She’s the Shark in the Dark?” Sinclair said.  He pursed his lips.  “Why would Christy Bryant be warning people off Conrad Knox?”

“Because of Scott,” Dalton guessed.

“Scott?”

“Langley wants him back – wants him back badly enough to keep him safe.  She’ll wangle him out of our grip if she can, but until then she has to make his job as safe as it can be.”

“Major…!” Baxter called across the Crib.  He was sitting around in his chair, his fingers held to his headset.  His baby-blue eyes were wide.  “We’ve got a hit on one of the phone taps!”

“Put it on speaker.” Dalton double-timed to the front of the Crib, Sinclair on her heels. 

The voices rasped through the speakers. 

“… _got more work for you_.”

They all recognised the voice.  It was the same young male voice that they’d already heard, phoning the dead Moyo’s phone.  Scott had named him Mystery Guest Number One, and the name had stuck. 

“ _That’s great!_ ”  Another man’s voice, and a South African accent. 

“Trace the number!” Dalton snapped to Richmond.  “Find that phone.”

“ _Mr Knox wants to discuss it in the person… Can you meet us at the plant this evening?_ ”

_“Not a problem.  What time?”_

_“_ _Eleven o’clock_ _.”_

_“That’s late.”_

“He’s calling from Upington,” Richmond recited.  “Public call box in a shopping centre ... trying to find CCTV footage…”

_“That’s when we arrive.  Mr Knox wants us to do this thing as quickly as possible. Can you be there?”_

_“Ja.  Ja, no problem.  I can be there.”_

_“And your team...?  Everyone who worked on the first job?”_

_“Er,”_ the voice took a moment to think things through.  _“Ja.  I can ask everyone to come back in tonight.  Tell Mr Knox we’ll be there.  My guys will be glad to meet him.”_

_“Good, da, very good.  We will be there at eleven.”_

_“Listen, there were a couple of guys around today asking about the first job.”_

There was a brief silence _.  “A couple of guys?”_   Mystery Guest repeated, slowly. 

_“Ja, they came around this afternoon, wanting to talk about Mr Knox, asking all sorts of questions.  Crazy talk, boet.  Just thought Mr Knox should know.”_

_“Don’t worry about them,”_ Mystery Guest said _.  “We take the care of them tonight when we see you.”_

_“Good, ja.”_

They finished the call.

Richmond’s eyes were quite big.  “Mystery Guest is still in Upington.  And he’s coming to take out Taljaard tonight.”

“Call the Bravo team,” Dalton said.  “They’re going to be there.” 

 

* * *

 

 

“There,” Stonebridge said, as the credits rolled.  “What did you think?”

Scott didn’t answer. 

He turned to find out why, and opened his mouth to repeat his question, but choked back his words. 

Scott had fallen asleep. 

Stonebridge turned onto his side, gently, so as not to wake him or accidentally knock the laptop off the foot of the bed.

Scott lay curled up against the head of the bed, his head down.  Asleep and naked, his face was innocent, guileless, puppyish; his usual fiery aggression dormant. 

Poor sleepy-head, having a post-climax snooze.  He’d missed out on the ending of the finest British comedy ever made. 

Then again, if he could fall asleep in the middle of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it was probably wasted on him anyway.  Typical Yank: no subtlety.  Scott seemed to think _all_ Englishmen were bizarre and made no sense.  He probably didn’t see much difference between John Cleese and a RSM, other than the absense of coconut shells. 

Stonebridge felt his spirit rise in a wave of amused affection.  He shifted himself upward on the bed, so that Scott’s face was close to his.  He leaned across, and pressed a kiss, very lightly, on Scott’s tanned brow, just under his high hairline.  

Scott moved in his sleep, disturbed, but then nudged his cheek into his pillow a little more snugly, and settled down again.  Perhaps, even in his sleep, he recognised Stonebridge; was aware in his sleep that he was close to someone who cared deeply about him, and that he was safe.

Stonebridge lifted one hand and ran his fingers lightly over Scott’s upper arm to his shoulder, over the tattoo, and then traced a line down over the curve of his bicep. 

Male lovers, he thought to himself; and had Alexander ever lain so close to his partner and watched him sleep?  Had any of the Sacred Band of Thebes ever lain awake in the afternoon and savoured the trusting sleep of his lover?  Any of the Companion Cavalry?  Achilles?  General Steuben?  TE Lawrence? 

Probably.  It seemed so very normal.

Perhaps it seemed normal because for him it _was._

The idea made him lean back and regard Scott with new eyes.  

Scott’s chunky body, the thickset column of his stomach, the hair on his chest and his groin, the lines and stubble on his face.  He was beautiful.  And yet he was not only male, but _macho._  

He remembered the file of gay porn that was still hidden on his hard drive.  He’d  scanned through pictures of men having sex, and they’d not aroused him in the slightest. 

And yet here he was, lying naked alongside a naked Damien Scott, and he’d enjoyed what they had done.  He wanted to do it again – soon.  He wanted to do it over and over, with new and exciting variations, every chance they got, for years and years.  Stonebridge might never sleep with a woman again, but he looked at Scott’s sleeping face and realized he was fine with that.

Perhaps he _wasn’t_ straight.  Perhaps he was not being squeamish about gay porn, but fussy.  Those smooth muscles and pink complexions…  None of them had seemed very interesting men, sexually speaking.  Bulky muscles from many hours in the gym, and perhaps a little chemical extra; flawless complexions;  long legs; long dicks … but a distinct lack of physical zing.  They’d been about as exciting as Duncan Brown, who had plucked his eyebrows, and who _moisturised._  

Perhaps he wasn’t interested in _those,_ because he was interested in _this_.  The smell of cigarettes and beer and cordite; the touch of stubble and callouses.  Masculine hairiness and macho aggression; camo and Kevlar and cargo-pants.  He was interested in Damien Scott.  He was interested in _soldiers._

He was homosexual, clearly.  But just as surely he was heterosexual, too. Heterogenously sexual?   

He liked women who were slim and curvy, which he was not – and he liked men who were rough and hairy, which he was not.  Both of his sexual tastes were different from himself, and yet different from each other – as if he was one corner of a triangle, and his two attractions were the other two corners, separate and equidistant.  A large _pink_ triangle…

Scott had had it right, back in Kalk Bay.  He _was_ the B in LGBT. 

The idea settled into his mind, as clear and incontrovertible as the sun rising. 

He liked men.  He liked women.  He was bisexual. 

Why had it not occurred to him before?  he wondered, and then answered his own question.  _Because you were married, idiot, and it wasn’t relevant._   He wasn’t straight, he was just monogamous: he’d fallen in love, and in love he’d stayed. 

He was bisexual.  He had a label, and the idea of it settled him.  He needn’t have worried about turning into Duncan Brown.  He was nothing like Duncan Brown.  He was something else. 

And even if anyone accused him of being like Duncan Brown, he didn’t care.  He was Special Forces – not just SAS but Section 20, the elite of the elite of the elite.  He had nothing left to prove.  He was going to sleep with whoever he liked, from now on. 

And he’d fallen in love with Damien Scott.  Loving Kerry and Kate had doomed both of them – but Damien Scott was tough.  He could take care of himself. 

Scott’s eyelids twitched.  His brows scrunched up, plaintively, and the little crows’ feet around his eyes twitched.  Twitch, twitch, twiddle-twiddle.  His fingers, curled next to his face, moved very slightly.  They shivered open and closed, little trembling twitches. 

That was a bad dream, he realized.  That wounded expression on Scott’s brow was a wrong that needed to be righted.  Wherever Scott was right now, he’d be better off back in the real world. 

He pressed his palm to Scott’s shoulder, and gave him a little push.  “Hey,” he whispered. 

Scott jerked, and his eyes flew open, and focused on Stonebridge’s face with a shocked expression.  “Whuh?”

“You were having a nightmare,”  Stonebridge told him, whispering into the private space between them. 

“Yeah,” Scott mumbled.  He reached up a hand and rubbed his knuckles against his mouth.  “What time is it?” 

“Five.” 

“Huh.” Scott made as if to move, and then subsided again.  “Recurring dreams, fuck.”

Stonebridge traced the tendons in his neck and shoulder.  “Want to tell me about it?” he asked.

“Huh, no.” 

“Yes.  Come on.  A burden shared is a burden halved, and all that.”

Scott sighed, and relaxed again.  “All right.”  He shut his eyes.  “I have these dreams that I’m running, and I can’t stop.”

“Something chasing you?”

“No.”  Scott opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbow.  Stonebridge leaned back to give him a little space.  “That’s the thing.  I’m running to get home.  Cos if I stop, I’ll be trapped.”

“Hmm.”  Stonebridge leaned closer, pressed his lips against the front of Scott’s shoulder. 

Scott rolled his head up on the pillow, to meet Stonebridge’s eyes.

“Do you dream about Kerry?”

_Kerry’s blood, in her shirt, in his hands… Kerry’s warm back, her weight as she collapsed in his arms… Blood spilling out, down his hands, through his fingers…_ He felt the jolt of shock jerk his muscles rigid. 

He hadn’t had a flashback since Manhattans.  He’d thought he was done with them. 

Stonebridge pulled his head away, and rolled over onto his back.  He closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb, trying to squeeze the vision away.  “None of your business.”

“Hey, don’t go away,” Scott said.  He followed Stonebridge across the space he’d opened.  The mattress sagged under his movement.  Stonebridge opened his eyes to find Scott’s face hovering over his.  “Don’t go away from this, Mikey.”

His warm sense of cosy self-knowledge had disappeared.  “I don’t want to have this conversation.”

“I think you need to have this conversation.  You need to feel what you’re feeling, buddy,” Scott said.  “Let it out.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”  He rolled himself away, and sat up.  He rolled his legs off the bed, and sat on the edge.  He put his head into his hands, pressing his fingers against his temples. 

“You gotta deal with it, Mikey.”

“I _am_ dealing with it.  I am dealing with this in my own way.”

He felt the mattress move as Scott came up behind him.  “Michael…”  Scott said. 

He lowered his hands, and stared at the carpet.  “I’m going to find Hanson.  I’m going to kill him.  Slowly.  And that’ll be _my_ way of dealing with it.” 

_Plee-lee-lee…! Plee-lee-lee…!_

“Fuck!” Scott said.  “Assholes have the worst fucking timing!” 

“They have perfect timing, thank you very much, because this conversation is _over._ ” 

Stonebridge lunged across to the bed-side table for his phone, grateful for the excuse to escape. 

“ _Michael, we’ve got a lead.”_

* * *

 

## MONDAY NIGHT

 

When Stonebridge turned the Landcruiser’s engine off, and turned off the lights, he could hear the night insects singing.  The yard was quiet and dark, but there was enough light to see by.  The block of Taljaard’s warehouse facing him gleamed against the night sky. 

“We’re in position,”  he said to his radio. 

“ _Roger that_ ,” Richmond’s voice was sharp and clear in his earpiece.  

They had the perfect hiding place – in the yard of the warehouse itself.  If they’d parked in the road, they would have stuck out like a sore thumb.  But in the yard itself, one more car among the miscellaneous lorries and forklifts would draw no attention. 

Next to him, Scott was examining the front of the warehouse with night-vision glasses.  “Zero, location is dark,” Scott said.  “Nothing’s moving.  They’ve all gone home for the night.”

“ _Roger that, Bravo_.”

Stonebridge drew his Sig-Sauer.  He screwed the silencer onto the barrel by feel, aware that Scott was matching his movements.  They both wore body armour, and both had an extra side-arm, but this business would not call for automatic weapons.  There were only three hostiles: Pavel the Mystery Guest and his two friends.  This job called for speed and silence, not firepower. 

Dalton took over the call. 

“ _Bravo team.  Zero_ ,” Richmond spoke in his head. 

“Zero, Bravo Two here,” Stonebridge said. 

“ _Pavel has been provisionally identified as Pavel Arnisimov_ ,” she said.  “ _Pushing you the picture right now_.”

Scott had heard in his earpiece as well.  He took out his phone, and a moment later it downloaded a picture.  Scott turned the screen so that Stonebridge could see. 

“Received the file,” Stonebridge said. 

It was a mugshot of a blond-haired young man, with a rawboned face.  

“Yeah,” Scott said, examining the picture as if the young man was a mail-order bride.  This was the man they were here to snatch; his friends were disposable, but they wanted him alive, with his head full of Toufeeq’s secrets.  “What’s in a name?” 

“ _Twenty-five years old, ex-Spetznaz.  He’s skated in and out of a dozen African pariah states in the last few years_.”

“And _again_ we have a Russian connection to Nostromo,” Stonebridge said.   

“ _Pavel has been in the country for the last three months_ ,” Dalton said.  “ _The South African Gang Unit picked him up as part of their investigation to bring down Suvorin, but they’ve lost track of him.  He’s been off the radar for a month_.”

“Until he phoned Moyo from Upington last night,” Scott said. 

“ _Your new mission_ ,” Dalton said,  “ _is to put your hands on Pavel Arnisimov_.”

“Now that we know what he looks like,” Scott said. 

“And the other two men with him?” Stonebridge asked.

“Take them alive if you can.  Take them out if you can’t.”

“Roger that,” Stonebridge said, grimly. 

“ _Arnisimov is the one we want.  He knows Toufeeq.  He knows the locations of_ _Camp_ _B._ _He’s clearly read-in on Nostromo.  And we’ll get that intel out of him by any means necessary.  Is that understood?_ ”

“Got it,” Scott said. 

“ _Zero, out_.” 

They were on their own. 

“Ready to go for a walk?”  Stonebridge asked. 

Scott’s eyes glinted in the dark, and then bobbed up and down as he nodded.  “Good to go,” he said. 

They got out, and closed the doors gently so they didn’t bang.  The night air was already frigid.  The night sky was a huge exultant smear of stars, crystal-clear in the desert dark. 

Stonebridge pressed his radio.  “We’re exiting vehicle now, crossing to warehouse.” 

“ _Copy that.  We have you on overwatch_.”

“On me,” Stonebridge said, pitching his voice low.  He ran across the yard, straight across to the northern corner of the building.  Scott’s footfalls crunched on the gravel, keeping pace behind him. 

They leapfrogged around the front corner and ran down the side of the building. 

This side was almost a tunnel, between the white cliff of the warehouse and a black barrier of trees and bushes.  The tunnel led toward the back of the building, and toward the canal that backed the plot.  They trotted along the wall, Stonebridge in the lead covering their forward path, with Scott on his heels covered the vegetation. 

“External CCTV?”

“Negative.”  Scott flicked on his torch briefly and beamed it up, checking for cameras, but there was nothing. 

The vegetation was a wall of black to their right. 

“Plan B, that’s my lying-up point,” Scott said, in a whisper.  “Right there!”  He pointed with one hand to a patch of darkness.  He would have a clear view of the building from there, and a clear field of fire. 

“Copy that.”

Stonebridge paused at a window and knelt below the level of the frame.  Scott came to a stop behind him.  Stonebridge raised himself, and flashed his torch into the room to be sure he was at the right window.  It was the front reception area.  His torchlight glinted on the panes of the windows opposite.  He took out the radio receiver, licked the suction cup of the bug, and stuck it against the lower pane of the window.  From there, it would pick up and transmit everything heard on the other side of the glass. 

“Bug in place,” he reported.  “On me,” he hissed to Scott, and they took off again. 

They doubled to the back of the building, and leapfrogged around that corner. 

Stonebridge doubled down the back of the building.  There was a door here, cut into the corrugated side of the warehouse.  “Got a rear entrance here,” he said. 

“ _That’s your access point_ ,” Richmond said.  “ _Building schematic says that’ll take you into the staff kitchen_.”

His heart nearly stopped as bright light banged into his eyes.  “Shit!” he snapped, shielding his eyes with his hand.  Bright arrows flashed in his retinas, flooding his brain. 

“Motion sensor light!” Scott said.  “Jeeze, Saffers!”

“Get out from under!”

They darted along out of the pool of light.  After a moment the sensor got tired of waiting for movement, and darkness dropped again. 

Almost darkness. Twin scratches of red light bobbled on his retinas, dancing in front of anything he looked at.  At least they had the cover of darkness again.  He turned to look at Scott, but Scott’s face was obscured by red smears. 

“Can you see?” Stonebridge asked.  “It got me in the face.” 

“I can see.  I’ll taking point,” Scott said.  “Zero, we’re moving on…” 

They doubled along the entire rear wall of the building and went around that corner.  That side of the yard was filled with miscellaneous engineering junk – left-overs and works-in-progress, safe from rust so far from the sea, if not from theft and occasionally use as cover by British military intelligence. 

Their Landcruiser stood waiting for them on the other side of that lot, somewhere beyond the red smears in his night vision. 

“ _Nothing moving on overwatch_ ,” Richmond reported.

“Nothing on the ground.  We have Location to ourselves.” 

They went back to the back door, and the light snapped on again to welcome them.  Their shadows were black puddles in the glare.  “Scott, you want to do the honours?”

For once, Scott didn’t come up with a sarcastic answer.  He shoved his gun away, and the light of his torch flicked on.  He shoved the butt of the torch between his teeth, and dropped to one knee at the lock.  Stonebridge stood over him, his spine against the wall, his gun ready to cover them both.  They were lit up by the security light like a target under a Very flare. 

“Zero, you’re ready with the alarm?”  Stonebridge asked. 

“ _Working on it_.”

Little clicking noises from the lock.  He could see the glitter of Scott’s picks, see his teeth bared around the torch in a blank grin of concentration.  He grunted something around the torch, and then spat it out into his palm.  “Gotcha.  Zero?”

“ _Stand by.  I’m nearly in_.”

Scott got to his feet, putting his picks away.  One hand held the torch, and he knotted his other fist around the doorhandle, ready to turn. 

“ _Jamming the signal.  Three, two, one…And go! Armed response is offline._ ”

The door popped open at Scott’s shove.

The doorway was a gaping black tunnel.  Scott’s torch dived into the dark,  but a shrill tweet came out to meet them.

_Meeeeeeep!_

Stonebridge followed the bobbling light, gun ready, charging after Scott’s jumping black silhouette.  The alarm had triggered.  They had thirty seconds to find the alarm box and input the code before the siren went off. 

“ _Report!_ ” Richmond demanded.  She might be jamming the radio signal to the control room of the armed response company – but she could not turn off the alarm system itself.  Unless they wanted to do their business with the alarm shrieking to the whole neighbourhood, they had to shut it off. 

_Meeeeeeep!_

“Finding the box...” he followed Scott into the dark. 

Scott followed his torch.  Stonebridge followed Scott.  The light flashed past fridge and microwave, out through a door, through the dark well of the building.  In ninety-nine out of a hundred alarm systems, the warning tone came out of the control box.  The noise was coming from the left, and Scott broke that way. 

“Twenty seconds,” Stonebridge said. 

“ _Hang on!_ ”

An open space – front reception.  Scott’s torch flashed around the room, and then dived around the corner into the receptionist’s office.  The alarm box was on the wall, behind a filing cabinet.  A line of red lights flashed in shock.

“We’re at the box,” Stonebridge reported.   He took up a guard position at Scott’s back, gun held ready.  “Ten seconds.”

“Jules, we need that code, now!” 

 “ _I’m in the mainframe… accessing the files…_ ”

_Meeeeeeep!_

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, you’re in the system, what’s the code?” Scott barked.

“ _Hang on, one second – Got it.  One Seven Four Five Two!_ ”

Scott’s finger jammed on the keypad, punching a rapid pattern.  The lights turned off.  The warning stopped, mid-tone.  A green light flashed on the keypad under the words ALARM OFF.

“Jesus Christ, we nearly had a street party!” Scott said, sounding exultant rather than worried. 

“ _Getting out of the main-frame_ ,” Richmond said.  She was ducking out of the security company’s computer system, hiding her intrusion before it detected her. 

Stonebridge turned and looked around him at the reception-desk computer.  He jiggled the mouse, and a moment later the screen flicked on with a demand for a username and password.  The screen glowed in the dark room. 

“Give us the ding-dong,” he demanded, reaching out for Scott. 

Scott pulled the USB drive out of his pocket and handed it to him.  He plugged it into the socket on the CPU.  The little light on the drive started flickering. 

Scott had disappeared into the next office, and Stonebridge could hear him running the drawers of a filing cabinet out, see the torchlight bobbing around in the room.  “Fuck me,” Scott said.  Stonebridge heard the sound of a digital camera shutter. 

The flash drive’s light turned off, and beeped.  Stonebridge pulled it out.  “Zero, are you getting this?” 

“ _It’s coming_.” 

The worm on the drive was digging into the system, the way it had dug into ATAT’s system last year.  It would do its job in a few minutes, and the computer would log itself online and start feeding everything on its hard-drive to the Crib, and then the worm would silently delete itself. 

“Next PC.” 

Once all the machines were done, he went exploring. 

He went into the next room, and found himself in the boardroom where they’d spoken to Havenga that afternoon.  No computers in here.  He explored the corridor, found a door, and opened it.  A quick glance around the corner showed him that it was a door into the great cavern of the garage itself.  He closed the door, and followed the light to Scott. 

“Mikey! You gotta see this,” Scott said.  He was bending over a desk, with a folder open in front of him.  He started snapping pictures as fast as he could, turning pages with one hand and shooting with his camera with the other. 

Stonebridge bent to look. 

The pictures were meaningless, at first, and then he realized what he was looking at.  Engineering work – metal plates and joints and hydraulic shafts… Someone had taken pictures of the job, as it was being done.  The turning of a forty-foot truck into a launch system for a WMD, one step at a time: somebody was _proud_ of their workmanship, and wanted to keep a record.

“Numberplate,” Stonebridge pointed out on a photo.

“Got it.” 

In a few minutes, every PC in the office was slaved to the Crib, every document in the folder marked STELLAR ARABIANS had been photographed, and they had an idea of the layout of the building. 

“Time to go, mate.” 

“On your six, buddy.”

“Zero, stand by with alarm.”

“ _Standing by_.”

Stonebridge’s fingers punched in the code of the alarm system, and again the warning tone echoed.  “Going out the back door,” he said to Richmond. 

Out, past the offices, through the kitchen.  Out of the door, into the cold air, and Scott pulled the door closed as he came out on Stonebridge’s heels. 

The motion sensor flashed on again, lighting up every hair on Scott’s jaws, and glittering off his grinning teeth.  “Heh-heeeh,” Scott exulted.

Stonebridge wanted to whoop with exhilaration, or kiss him, but he fought back both urges.  “We’re outside,” he gasped, for Zero’s benefit. “Mission accomplished, going back to OP.”

“ _Copy that_.” 

Scott held up a fist.  Stonebridge grinned at him, and met Scott’s fist with his own.  Taljaard Unpronounceable would never even know they’d been burgled. 

 

* * *

 

 

“ _Be advised,”_ _Richmond_ _said, “We’re losing overwatch in… three… two… one… That’s it, boys, you’re on your own_.”

“Copy that,” Stonebridge said. 

‘Their’ satellite was obsessing over Syria, taking high-resolution pictures of Aleppo.  Their borrowed satellite, not geo-stationary, was going out of range.  They wouldn’t have their eye in the sky for the next hour and a half.

They’d been in the Landcruiser for an hour, and Taljaard Unpronounceable’s people hadn’t arrived yet.  If they weren’t here soon, Arnisimov would arrive to find no welcoming committee. 

Except from Section Twenty, of course.  They would be sure to roll out the red carpet for whoever Knox sent to the party. 

“It’s cold,” Stonebridge said.  With the car’s turned off, the heater wasn’t on, and neither of them wanted to drain the battery for the sake of chilly fingers.

“Could be worse,” Scott said. 

“Could be back in Bastogne?” Stonebridge quoted. 

“Nope,” Scott grinned, and Stonebridge saw the glint of his front teeth.  “Could be back in retail.” 

“You’d rather take Bastogne than retail?”

“Pal, I’d rather take _prison_ than retail.  And I’ve done both.” 

The green dayglo clock on the dashboard ticked through the minutes. Another night, another target, another stake-out.  They’d both checked their weapons, examined the satellite feed of the location, checked their comms.  There was nothing left to do.  Now, they just had to wait. 

“I’m bored.” 

“Save it for a Facebook update, Scott.”

“You bored?”

“I’ve been bored for an hour, Scott.”

“I’m _real_ bored.” 

“My grandfather always said, boredom is the sign of an empty imagination.” 

“And you’ve been bored for an hour, Mikey?” 

“Like you’re not bored too.” 

Scott sighed, deeply.  “I wasn’t bored until _now,_ ” he said, plaintively.

“Liar.”

“Asshole.”

“Berk.”

“What the fuck is a _berk?_   Did you just make that up?”

Stonebridge leaned his elbow on the windowsill and grinned at Scott.  “You know what I think?” Stonebridge asked.  “I think your mother was a hamster.”

“Fuck,” Scott said, startled.  “Don’t you bring my mother into this.”

“And your father smelled of elderberries!  You empty-headed animal food-trough-wiper!”

“Oh, shit, this is that Monty Python crap?” Scott banged his fist on the dashboard.  “Fuck! I’m warning you!  If you’re going to start that again, I’m getting out of this car and I’m fucking _walking_ home to Michigan!”

He was getting a rise out of Scott.  Wonderful!  Making the American sit through the Holy Grail had been worth it!  He would have to get his hands on the Life of Brian as well! 

“I don’t want to talk to you, anyway, you son of a silly person!”

“ _Gentlemen,_ ” Richmond said, her words very precisely enunciated, even over the thin channel of their earpieces.  “ _May I remind you that you are on VOX_.”

“Shite,” Stonebridge felt for his microphone and turned the little slider from VOX to normal Push-To-Talk. 

VOX meant they were on hot mikes: everything that happened within hearing of the radio was being transmitted.  It was meant as a convenience, to save them from having to remember to press the transmit button in the middle of a fight, but they rarely used it.  Zero could hear every shot, every word, and every frantic combat-stress-induced grunt or curse. 

Every word of their juvenile conversation had been carried to Zero.

Scott was watching him, closely.   “I’ve got a suggestion for passing the time,” Scott said. 

“Oh, yeah?” 

Scott took a long look at the front of the warehouse, and then scoped around in the mirrors and blind spot, making sure they were alone.  Stonebridge did the same.  Nothing was moving.

“All clear.” 

“Great.”  Scott shifted in his seat, using his arms to wriggle himself around to face him.  “You’ll like this,” he promised.

“What are you planning – oh.”

He needn’t have asked.  Scott’s hand had crossed the space between them, and he could feel strong fingers tug up the bottom of his shirt and begin to work at his buckle. 

“Now?” he asked, flabbergasted.  “Are you mad?” 

“You’ve known me this long and you have to ask?” Scott asked. 

He looked down at his body.  He could see the glint of his belt buckle flickering in the dark, as Scott undid his belt one-handed.  “Put your hands over your head,” Scott said.  “And for fuck’s sake don’t put your foot on the brake pedal.”

He obeyed, wrapping his fingers around the cold steel supports of the headrest.  The pose arched his back and shoulders.  He was already aroused. 

Scott went to work exposing him.  His flies were being opened up, and his underpants were being pushed down, and Scott’s hand was between his thighs, pressing his legs apart.  He moved one leg out of the way, and hitched his hips forward to give Scott better access. 

Stonebridge felt fingers brush his erection.  “Shit, already?” Scott said.  He sounded impressed.  “I’m fucking the Energiser bunny…”

“This will make a mess,” Stonebridge said.

“Don’t worry about that,” Scott promised.  “Keep your eyes on the target.”

And then he felt warm hands around his penis, cupping his length.

He jerked, with mixed surprise and pleasure.  Scott’s fingers were rough, and slightly painful on his inflamed skin.  He took a firm grasp, but he didn’t start pulling. 

“Don’t stop.”  His penis lay in Scott’s hand, hot and needy, and he jigged his hips slightly to encourage him.  “Why have you stopped?”

“Open the VOX again.”

“Why?” 

“Just do it.” 

“They’ll hear.”  He could feel himself soften very slightly with his anxiety, the tremor of dread quaking in his gut. 

That wicked laugh.  “You’ll just have to make sure they don’t hear.”

“Seriously, mate, they’ll hear.”

“If you don’t, I’ll stop.”  Scott moved his hand, and Stonebridge felt his fingers withdrawing.  “You want that?”

His hand shot down and snapped around Scott’s wrist.  “Don’t stop,” he hissed.  “I’ll do it, just don’t stop.” 

That wicked chuckle, and with the sound of it, his arousal was back.  He slid his hand under his shirt, felt for the microphone, and slid the little switch back into the open position.  He gave Scott a silent thumbs-up, then put his hand back around the headrest and waited to see what Scott would do. 

Zero could hear everything now. 

Scott moved himself closer.  He adjusted his grip, shifting his other hand to rest it on Stonebridge’s knee.  The hand that held Stonebridge raised him up, so that he stood vertically out of his jeans. 

He could see his own cap, pale in the darkness of his lap, and he shivered and tried to buck slightly into Scott’s grip.  And then, just as Stonebridge was wondering what Scott was going to use for lubricant, Scott bent double.  He was looking down at broad shoulders and a dark head suddenly lying in his lap. 

Warm lips around his penis…

The incredible shock of arriving in warm wetness made him gasp, and his hips buck up against Scott’s mouth.  But he was on open mike – Zero could hear.  He bit his lip, and tried to hold the sudden panting silently inside.

He was sitting in a car, in the middle of a mission, with Damien Scott’s mouth around his dick.  He was getting a blowjob from a man!  And it felt good. 

So fucking good, it was hard to bear.  The pressure of pleasure without touching back was intolerable … he moved his hands down and knotted his hands in Scott’s hair, feeling the prickle of gel. 

The mouth withdrew, and the head of his penis popped out. 

That was all the threat he needed.  God, Scott did not play fair!  No hands, and no noise to complain about it?  He took his hands away, stretched his hands above his head and gripped the steel headrests with his fists.  If Scott wanted his dick, he could have it however he wanted it, as long as he put his mouth back there, please, please… he jigged his hip again, pleading. 

Scott laughed in his lap, a silent little chuckle of breath that he felt on his inflamed skin, and then he lowered himself again. 

He felt the warm mouth embrace him again, and he bucked his hips up against it, trying not to whimper.  They were at odd angles to each other, scrunched in the seat, so he didn’t rest neatly on Scott’s tongue, but sideways across his mouth.  It felt odd, lopsided, at first. 

And then he felt the swirl of tongue against his head, and felt Scott’s mouth begin to bob.  That feeling right there was lips riding his shaft, that other feeling there was his tongue, going swirl, swirl at his entrance. 

Bob, bob – swirl-swirl – bob, bob.  The pressure rose higher and higher, and he writhed with it… and he couldn’t make a noise because Zero was listening to every breath he made…

Dear God!  God, but it felt good! 

His back arched against the seat, his heels against the floor. His arms strained to pull him by force higher into that mouth.  There was nothing else in the world but the centre of pleasure where his dick met something wet and warm.  There was no Scott attached to his dick, just a hot centre of pure white-hot pleasure, into which he bucked himself repeatedly, up, up, up…

The force of his climax whiplashed his head back against the seat.  The voice in his ear went away to a tinny meaningless bleat.  Lights were flashing in his eyes.  His hands came down by themselves and knotted into Scott’s head, his hips jumping up to fuck his mouth. 

As his dick jerked, he let out his usual half-roar of release and triumph.  “Uhhhmmm!  _Ahhhh!_ ”

He collapsed.  His hands fell loose over Scott’s head, and he hung his head forward, drunk with release, and panting with pleasure.

“ _Bravo team, do you copy?_ ”

He opened his eyes.  “Huh?” he asked, unable to think of a coherent reply. 

“ _Bravo One, what’s going on?”_

Shit, they’d been on open mike all that time.  “Uh, nothing.” 

Scott withdrew.  His mouth came away with a slight kissing motion, that gave Stonebridge one final spasm and left him lying limp and empty.  Scott sat up, using his hand on Stonebridge’s knee to lever himself upright.  He put the back of the other hand over his mouth, and the whites of his eyes sparkled in the dark.

“ _What was that noise?_ ”

He realized that he’d heard a voice in his earpiece before, but it had seemed to be coming from very far away, and it hadn’t registered.  Jesus, what must they be thinking over there in the Crib? 

“Uh, Zero, that was me.  I was… having a stretch, that’s all,” Stonebridge lied.  “Stretching my back and yawning.”

Was Scott going to… was he really going to… Yes, he did.  He _had._   Scott opened his mouth, and treated him to that wide wicked grin.  “Hneh!” he snorted with laughter.  “Heh-heh- _heeeehhhh_.” 

Stonebridge stared at him.  He’d put his load into Scott’s _mouth_.  And Scott had just swallowed it – all of it.  He knew what his juice looked like.  And now Scott knew what he tasted like.

He’d always been thrilled by the idea of his wigglies wiggling around inside his women – and now they were wiggling around inside Scott.  Even as he looked, his juice was introducing itself to the inside of Scott’s mouth and throat and stomach.  “Fuck,” he said, amazed and shocked, and _incredibly_ pleased with himself. 

“ _Bravo team, report_.” 

“Nothing’s happening,” Scott said, sitting back into his seat with the languor of a cat settling onto a pillow.  “We’re all good, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” he said, still shaken by his release.  “Oh, yes.”

There was a silence on the other end of the line.  He looked at Scott and made a throat-cut signal, to cut off the open vox. 

 

* * *

 

 

Dalton put her hand around her microphone, effectively muting it.  Scott and Stonebridge hadn’t responded for almost two minutes.  “What the hell are those two clowns doing?”  she asked. 

Sinclair did the same with his microphone.  “Stonebridge sounds distracted.” 

“We don’t have overwatch,” Richmond said.  “They could have been taken.”

“Coercion?” Sinclair asked.  “Or bait-and-switch?”  He moved his hand off his microphone.  “Bravo team, please confirm ID?”

 

* * *

 

 

_“…confirm ID?_ ”

“Oh, you gotta be kidding me.” Scott groaned. 

“This is all your fault,” Stonebridge hissed at him. 

“ _My_ fault!” Scott protested.  “ _I’m_ not the one making monkey noises!”

“It was your idea!”

If Zero wanted them to confirm ID, it was because they doubted who was on the other end of the comm line.  The confirmation ID’s were one-time codes, and if they used this one, they’d have to memorise another one for the next mission.  If they got them wrong, Zero would know they’d been compromised – Zero would play along, but all orders and intel would be regarded as coerced. 

He reached for his microphone, and pressed it to transmit.  “Zero, code Bravo-One-Five-Oh-Seven-Two-Hotel-India-India-Bravo-Mike-Charlie-India.”

Scott sighed.  “Zero, code Bravo-Two-Seven-Seven-One-Four-Golf-Echo-Tango-Charlie-Alpha-Victor-Hotel.” 

They wouldn’t get any confirmation if they had the codes right, or wrong. 

It had been good, while it lasted – but he was now sitting in a car in an open road, with his T-shirt shoved up and his flies open like a pervert.  The embarrassment began to cover his pride and pleasure.  He’d made a noise!  And a loud one too, according to Kerry and Kate.  He shoved down the T-shirt, and quickly zipped himself up. 

“I’m not ever doing that again,” he said to Scott.

“Was good while it lasted, tho-  _oh-ho,_ look what we have here.”  Scott’s voice changed, from idle flirtation to serious.  He sat up in his seat.   

Stonebridge turned.  A car’s lights were coming up the road.  The lights swivelled, tracking across the car as the driver swung into the yard and pulled up in front of one of the garage doors.  Scott leaned in one direction, Stonebridge leaned in the other, and they ducked under the cover of the dash, as the lights played across the windscreen of the Landcruiser. 

“Just in time,” Scott crooned happily. 

“Zero,” he reported. “We have a white panel-van arriving at the door.  Designating Charlie One.”  He sat up and had a look. 

The van’s headlights reflected a pool of light against the front of the warehouse, enough that he didn’t need the night-vision glasses.  He set his hand on the Landcruiser’s ignition switch and ticked through his next moves in his mind.  Turn on, drive forward.  Scott would open fire to keep the bystanders’ heads down.  They’d grab their guy, and get out. 

He saw the side door of the van run open, and men start jumping down.  There were much more than three of them.

“People exiting the vehicle.  Two… four… five… six… nine… ten individuals altogether.”

“Yeah,” Scott confirmed, “Ten guys.”

“ _Can you confirm identities?_ ”

“Cannot confirm... wait.  They’re going in and turning lights on.”

Lights were going on in the office block.  The strip of windows just under the warehouse’s roof lit up, as the big garage space was lit up.  And the alarm did not go off, which meant the code had been punched in again.  And bad guys didn’t turn on all the lights if they were setting up an ambush.  Taljaard’s workers, drawn to their appointment with death. 

“Presume Taljaard’s employees,” Stonebridge murmured.  “They’re making themselves at home.” 

“Setting out the welcome mat, before Conrad Knox arrives to pat ‘em on the head and tell ‘em how much he’s appreciated their hard work,” Scott said. 

“It’s half past ten,” Stonebridge said. 

“They’ll be here,” Scott said.

They were. 

“Here we go,” Stonebridge said, as more lights came up the road.  The bright white sting of the lights resolved into two sets, and swung across the road into the yard. 

He and Scott ducked.  Stonebridge heard and felt the Landcruiser’s engine turn over.  They were ready.  Scott shoved the car’s gear into first as soon as the light was off them, and they sat up. 

“Shit,” Scott breathed. 

Two cars, not one.  They swung around in the yard, and pulled up in front of the door, bracketing it, blocking the door from their view.  A perfect roadblock – keeping the civvies inside in, but also keeping the Bravo team out.   

Those cars were blocking the door from the Landcruiser’s attacking swing.  They couldn’t grab Arnisimov, with those cars parked there.

“Zero, there are two cars.”  Stonebridge called in.  “Passengers getting out…”

There were more than just three people climbing out of those cars. 

He watched the cars’ doors opening, inside courtesy lights flashing on inside their cabins.  He watched people climbing out of the two cars.  He heard Scott counting under his breath.  “Two… six… ten… Twelve hostiles.” 

Damn!  They had miscalculated, assuming that Arnisimov would come to Taljaard with the same two men he’d had when he checked out of the Paradise Lodge.  But he’d picked up back-up.  They were wildly outnumbered, and their plan for snatching Arnisimov was wrecked.  Their kidnapping would have to go to Plan B. 

“Zero, there are twelve hostiles,” Scott said.  “Shit.  No chance to intercept.”  The engine turned off again. 

“Going to Plan B!” Stonebridge said.  He popped open his door, and ducked out. 

They needed to get into the building before the shooting started.  They couldn’t intercept Arnisimov before he got inside – so they would have to stop him before he got down to murder.

“On your six,” Scott said.  Over on the other side of the yard, he could hear voices.  Male speech, greetings, welcomes.  Car doors banged shut.  

His boots were on the gravel, crunching rapidly.  He heard Scott running on his own zig-zag path, and then his footfalls faded.  He was taking off, heading away on his own flanking swing, all the way around the back of the building. 

Stonebridge ducked behind and through the standing machinery in the yard.  His lying up point was on the south end of the building, in the dark shadow of a big yellow digger.  He dived into the deep puddle of darkness, and froze into immobility.  “In position,” he reported. 

“ _On route_ ,” Scott panted. 

He had time to see what was going on.  The new arrivals were going inside, except for one who was standing by the front door, looking left and right.  The cars’ lights were still on, crossfiring at the doorway like a set of floodlights.  There was nowhere to hide there: anyone trying to get out of that door would be shot down.  The lights made it a perfect killing zone. 

Fortunately, it also made aiming his weapon at the look-out that much easier.  The look-out wasn’t Hanson, but Stonebridge was perfectly happy to kill him instead in the meantime.  He propped his elbow on his knee to support the Sig.  The gun’s backsight was a perfect silhouette in the dark against the broad leather jacket of the sentry.  He brought the foresight up, slid his finger into the trigger guard, ready to fire.    

Not Hanson; but still a dead man. 

A voice suddenly appeared in his ear, snapping into existence. The VOX control on the bug had detected voices being spoken, and had switched into transmit-mode.  They were in the reception area. 

He heard Havenga’s voice.  “Where’s Mr Knox?” 

He recognised the next voice.  “He is not coming.  He said he is very sorry for the lateness and the missing you.  This is the occasion, da?” 

“Ja.” 

“Damn,” another voice said.  “I wanted to meet him.” 

“Da, I know, I know, but he sent us with the very important message for you.  We all go into the boardroom?”  The voices faded slightly, as they filed into the other room, and then picked up again as they were collected by the second bug that Scott had hidden under the boardroom table.

“Scott,” Stonebridge asked, under his breath.  “Are you copying this?”

“ _Lima Charlie_ ,” Scott panted.  _Loud and clear…_

“Francois,” Arnisimov said.  “Go, start. You know what to do.  We wait.” 

“Where’s he going with that?”

“He’s got the job to do.  We wait, just a minute.”

“Johan, go with this _ou_ , show him whatever he needs.”

“No!  No!  Let’s all sit around table, all right?” 

“Your guy can’t wander around in the garage all by himself, let Johan help … _Fok!_ ”

There was a startled burst of voices.  Stonebridge picked out a few English phrase, and Afrikaans, and an African language he didn’t recognise. 

“What’s with the gun?”

“Hey, hey … hands up.  That’s better.”

“Let’s not be having trouble, now, aye?”  Another voice.  “You sit down like good lads.  Keep your hands where we can see ‘em.” 

“Listen, what’s going on here?” Havenga asked.  Stonebridge could hear the panic in his voice.  “What’s with the guns?  Jesus, what’s with the guns?  Don’t point that at me, please…” 

“Mr Knox says he is very grateful for the job.  He tested it out and the job works very well.  Nearly ready to go, he says, and now there’s just the one thing.” 

“Oh, Jesus…”

“ _In position!_ ” Scott reported. 

 “Going in, _now!_ ”

The Sig bucked up against his palms and the sentry dropped.  Stonebridge launched from his cover. 

 

* * *

 

 

Scott put the muzzle of his Glock against the lock of the back door and simply blew it off.  He slammed his shoulder against the door and blew it off its hinges.  In the same move he threw himself in, catching himself on spread legs. 

The kitchen was still half-dark.  He had it to himself.  He leaped across to the far door, and hooked around the corner. 

A bad-guy, on the other side.  He’d heard the crash of the door coming in, was swinging in Scott’s direction.  He held a big yellow jerry-can in his hands. 

Scott didn’t take chances.  The Glock bucked in his hand, the suppressed shot just a slap in the air.  The man fell away.  The jerry-can banged onto the floor.  The fluid inside began to bubble out, _glop-glop-glop_. 

Petrol… the smell hit Scott’s nostrils.  They were going to torch the place.  He dropped his hand, and righted the jerry-can before any more of the stuff could pour out.   Arnisomov’s plan was clear _.  Shoot ‘em all, then burn the place down.  By the time the cops figure it out…_  

“I’m in!” he said, for his radio’s benefit. 

“ _Coming to you!_ ” Michael hissed.

They had to converge on the boardroom, get there before Arnisimov opened fire.  This had changed from a kidnap to a hostage situation, but they’d both trained on hostage situations. 

 “ _What was that noise?_ ” Arnisimov demanded.  “ _You – go check_.”

There was a shot – a single loud crack.  And then another, and another. 

He stopped dead.  Mikey had hit trouble… Just the one gun was firing, but the damage was done.  Surprise was lost.  There was a hubbub of voices, a background of yells, screams of shock, shouts of alarm. 

“ _Never mind!_ ” Arnisimov screamed over the noise.  “ _Do it!_ ” 

_Put-put-put-put-put_ … The sound of silenced shots, and then it was drowned by screams and shouts.  It was a blast of sound through the bug, clapping in his ear… collateral damage, murder in fucking progress, and he had to get to the boardroom, _now!_  

He held up the Glock and raced down the corridor – and someone swung out of a doorway ahead of him.  He saw the long muzzle and curved ammo of an AK47 turn in his direction just before it opened fire, just in time to make a high-speed halt and lightning double-take and leap into a doorway on his right. 

_Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’ve left my M16 in the back of the fucking Landcruiser…_

Bullets chewed up the door around him, ripping the air behind his back, the racket of the AK battering at the air like an assault all on its own. 

“Fuck!” he yelled.  “Taking fire!” 

The battering fire stopped.  He was in a narrow room, a bolthole, safe only until the AK came around that corner.  He hooked over to the side of the room, intending to jump the guy from the side, but then the wall began to explode, bullets slamming through the thin prefab card, hammering dust into the air. 

_Why dash if you can smash?_   The dude wasn’t going to chase Scott.  He was just going to stand back and bash the place down around his ears. 

He jerked around, and threw himself down, under the line of bullets stitching the air just before they stitched through him.  Bullets cracked and ripped above his head. 

He rolled, put up his head, stared through the dust and the deafening racket.  Door, on the other side.  The thunder paused, long enough for him to put his legs under him and throw himself at the door. 

It opened, throwing him out onto concrete in a huge open space.  The space was dark but the reek of gasoline slapped his face. 

He sprang across the floor to a lathe, and ducked behind it. 

The AK came out of the doorway, but without a clear target the fire went wild, spray-and-pray.  He held out the Glock, shut his ears to the thunder of automatic fire that was rocketing around the garage floor, shut his mind to the death hammering all around him, and drew a deliberate bead on Mr AK’s left eye. 

Mr AK went down.  Scott leaped up from the lathe.  He sprang across the garage, ducking to grab the AK47 by its slings as he jumped over Mr AK.

_AK47 – natch, every other shithead has one._ Sometimes he thought the fucking things were following him around, but really Mr Kalashnikov’s best inventions were just _all over_ the fuckin’ place, they were like fuckin’ Coca Cola…

The thought flashed in and out of his mind, at a different layer to the flickering impressions of his surroundings, on a different plane to his emotions.  Competing impressions, flashing too fast to track in and out of his consciousness; he soared  through them, driven on like a machine by implacable training and relentless aggression… The room, battered with bullet holes, and the corridor, and the sound of Mikey blasting his own entry into the other side of the building.  

_Moving forward!_

He broke out into a cross corridor and became aware of a scream, then the bang of a door, and the sudden movement out of the corner of his eye as a man burst out of a room on his right.   He swivelled, registered the weapon in his hand, and fired a controlled burst from the AK into his chest.  “Fuck you!” he shouted, as the man collapsed, and just then the lights cut out.

A scream – a blithering, bubbling, babbling sound of panic.  _Civilian!_  

He dived in through the closing door on his left, in time to see shoulders disappear into another dark door.  This door slammed shut. 

“Hey!” he yelled.  “Friend!  Friend!”

 

* * *

 

 

Stonebridge plunged in through the front door, his Sig up and ready.  His sight stitched across the room, even as his legs drove him on.  Around the reception desk.  Corridor.  Boardroom was up there. 

He dived through the glass door, and even as he came around it there was a loud _crack!_ and the glass shattered, hung like a translucent mirror and then poured onto the floor.  Another _crack!_

He was taking fire.  Where the fuck…? 

He ducked backward, instinctively throwing himself back to where there had been no fire.  Back to the desk, and down, but the shots were still coming, splintering the desk, and he threw himself around on his knees trying to find the source.

He found the doorway to the walk-in cupboard at the same time that the man there ran out of ammo.  The gun’s muzzle was a cannon, aimed at him, point blank.  Stonebridge was a dead man – and the semi went _click._

_Click, click, click_ – the man behind it hadn’t yet noticed that the gun’s slide wasn’t racked back, that the magazine was empty, and Stonebridge saw him lower his gun and frown stupidly at the top of the weapon, saw the blank confusion on his face just before Stonebridge put a .357 bullet into his head. 

He sprang up from his knees.  His boots crunched on broken glass, as he ducked around the corner. 

Hammering hell broke loose, all around, shots cracking and slicing the air, and the shuddering kicks in his chest flung him bodily backwards. 

Slam!  The blow to his chest drove him backwards like a doll, tossing him off his feet.  His body slammed into the desk, and pinwheeled over it.  He was pinned there, helpless, until he kicked frantically with his legs to launch himself the rest of the way.  He crashed over onto the floor. 

_Hanson!_

He gasped for air, thrown onto his back like a landed fish, trying to flap himself back onto his front so that he could scramble for cover. 

There was still incoming fire from automatic weapons going over his head, trying to search him out.  He tried to yell, “I’m hit,” but his lungs wouldn’t obey. 

_Bibbidi-neoow!  Bibibbidi-bibbidi-bibbidi-neoow!_   He recognised the distinctive shrill clattering of an AK47. 

He was a dead man. His Sig couldn’t dream of countering that hammering hail.  There was no point in even trying.  They’d fucked up again.  He might as well just curl up here and pretend to sleep and let it happen.  He didn’t care.  He wanted his end.  He had nothing left to live for, to fight for.  Hanson had killed his reason for fighting.  He would just lie here and let him kill him. 

But if he did that, then Hanson would have got away with it. 

Rage swamped into his vision, driving down his despair, slamming at his heart, making his muscles convulse.   

_Never!_

His rage made his muscles convulse.  His heart slammed in his chest, red rimming the edge of his vision.  He flung himself forward, scrambling across the floor.  The seconds dragged around him, as if he had all the time he needed to get there.  The racket thudded his ears.  The lack of air in his lungs made it seem as if there was nothing in the world but his hands and the butt of the Sig and the small plot of tiled floor in front of him. 

Door, ahead! 

He fell through the door, and at last the air came back into his lungs, and with it the slam of pain in his chest.  Cold air on his sweat, and the reek of petrol.  He rolled back to his feet and spun to face the door.  The Sig came up, in time to see the door slam shut. 

There was movement on his left side.  He whirled, the Sig lining.  The movement was a yellow jerry can, swung at his head,  but the jerry-can was not a target.  The foresight of the Sig lined on the face behind it – _not Hanson_ – and fired into it.  

The face fell away, the jerry can falling with a bong and a slosh.  The reek of petrol stung his eyes.   

“Francois!” he heard a voice on the other side of the door. 

“Francois’s not coming!” he bawled back, his voice ragged with rage. 

His reply was a shriek of AK47 fire that chewed through the door and felt its way around the room like a mad swarm of lead.  It was death to stand.  He threw himself backwards before the stitching fire reached him, rolling into the cover of the nearest large metallic thing, and found himself rolling in a puddle of petrol. 

The hail of fire cut out.  And just then it went dark, as if his eyes had just died.  The lights had gone. 

“ _Leave him!_ ” Arnisimov yelled.  “ _Burn it down!  Leave him to the fire!_ ”

 

* * *

 

 

“Michael!” Scott bawled into his radio. 

He banged at the door again, but the civvie on the other side was hanging on for dear life.  He was blubbering frantically in Afrikaans, but he was a big guy with a mechanic’s muscles and Scott couldn’t shake him off the door.  “Friendly!” he yelled through the door but the mechanic’s English had deserted him in his panic and he only blubbered louder.

He had no time for the Panic Mechanic.  He wasn’t the only one in the shit tonight, and Scott had to find out what had happened in the boardroom. 

He gave the door a frustrated kick, and left.  He trotted out, nerves twanging, the strap of the AK flapping against his arm. 

The battering of fire from the other AK stopped, and in the sudden pool of quiet he heard voices.  _“Who the fuck are these guys?”_ somebody squawked. 

_“They’re Section Twenty!”_

_“We’ve got to get that one and –!”_

_“Lock him in!  He won’t make it!”_ Arnisimov barked.  _“Light it up, and let’s go!”_

He’d heard Richmond’s voice in his ear earlier but he hadn’t been able to reply.  Now she popped back up.  “ _Bravo One, Bravo Two, report your position!_ ”

“Bravo Two’s MIA!” Scott said.  “One civilian, north-west corner, alive.”

“ _Bravo Two here_ ,” Stonebridge croaked.  “ _I’m okay.”_   He sounded exhausted. 

“Where are you, buddy?” Scott demanded, buttonhooking around a corner. 

“ _In the garage. Locked in.  They’ve gone_.”

And they were going to set fire to the building any second…  They had to get out of here, or die with Taljaard’s guys.  Naah.  He didn’t think he felt like dying today.  Fuck ‘em. 

“Coming to you!” Scott announced. 

 

* * *

 

 

Stonebridge popped out the magazine of the Sig, and banged in a new full one.  “ _Light it up_ ,” Arnisimov had shouted, on the other side of the door, and he’d heard something heavy being thrown across the doorway. 

The rage was still thrumming inside him, powering his movements like a turbine, but although his fingers shook and his mouth was dry, his mind was clear. 

He was trapped in here, they were about to set the place on fire … and he was soaked in petrol.  He had to get rid of that before they threw in a match. 

He holstered the Sig and sat down on a bench, and yanked at his bootlaces.  The boots were tossed away into the dark.  Trousers - down, and off.  He tried to use the dry upper legs to wipe the sticky petrol off his legs and left arm. 

Smoke… and a whoosh.  He turned.  “Oh, crap.” 

Blue-gray ripples crossed the wet floor, dancing into golden light, and a heartbeat later the dark cavern of the garage was lit up like a vision of hellfire.  A siren immediately started up, a shrill two-tone whistle that echoed in his ears. 

“They’re torched the place!” he reported.  He jumped off the bench and threw his trousers at the fire in defiance.  They were eaten up in seconds. 

He ran across the cold concrete floor in his socks.   There was nothing moving in the shadows.  He felt splinters pressing against his feet, but they didn’t get into his hard infantryman’s soles, rubbed religiously with spirits once a week.

And then one did… Something lanced up into the heel of his left foot like an electric shock, making him jump with reflexive pain and pluck the foot up off the floor.  He couldn’t feel what he’d stood on, but as soon as he put his foot down the pain lanced again.  He’d stood on something sharp, and it was still embedded in his foot. 

As long as he kept his heel raised off the floor, he could walk.  He had no choice. 

He found the windows that looked out from the boardroom onto the garage floor.  The glass had been shot out.  Shards twinkled on the floor like little knives.  

He shouldn’t go any closer, he shouldn’t stop to look, the heat was beginning to rise, but the fire seemed to look over his shoulder, showing him, and begging him to take a look…

The second he looked, he regretted it.  It looked like the debriefing video he’d seen of the aftermath of the Iranian Embassy siege after the boys went in through the window … except that these were not terrorists, these were innocents caught up in something way beyond their understanding. 

They lay torn apart in the dark, backs arched and limbs thrown at painful angles, covered with chewed up stuffing from the furniture.  Black blood spattered the walls.  He could see dead eyes staring, stilled fingers, ripped clothing.

“Bravo One,” he said, backing away.  “Boardroom is a no-go.  No survivors.”

“Roger,” Scott said. 

“Coming to you!” 

The glass was a no-go as well.  He could make his way across it, but he would cut his feet to shreds, and still have to climb in through the window.  But there was a door here, and he realized he’d seen it from the other side. 

He turned the handle, and stepped in, getting away from the gathering heat and light.  He turned a corner, sidestepping behind the Sig, scanning ahead of him.  Aching chest, stinging foot… he limped across the corridor, trying to keep his weight off his left heel.  “I’m out of the garage!” he called.  “Moving to the boardroom.” 

 

* * *

 

 

Scott raged along the corridor behind the AK.  He fired a burst into a cabinet, which exploded into sparks, and then moved on.  He turned the corner, and saw movement. 

Not Mikey. 

The AK lined itself, and he fired off a burst, and the target tumbled back.  Another movement, a gun aimed blindly around the corner.  The barrel waggled, firing wildly, and bullets chewed the wall behind him.  Covering fire, trying to keep his head down, but he had something to answer that. 

He dropped to his knees, scrunched up as if he could find cover behind the AK’s long magazine.  He lined the AK’s foresight at the wall, just at the angle where the arms holding the other weapon would meet, and fired a short burst.  The heavy 7.62 bullets chomped through the wall. 

The weapon dropped, and there was a yowl of pain. 

“Fuck you!” he roared, and sprang up, and dashed around the corner, the AK lining in pursuit.  His target was at his feet, and he put a burst into him.  Then there was more movement in front of him, and a crash in the dark, and a sudden explosion of fire. 

Fire!  They’d thrown something, and it had burst into flames.  He _hated_ fire! 

There were figures retreating beyond the flames, but the heat was blazing towards his face, accelerated by some sort of fuel, and he dropped back around the corner again.  “They’re falling back! Mikey, I’m coming to you.”    

“I’m here,” Mikey reported, and Scott heard him through his earpiece as well as his ears. 

“Coming to you, round the corner.”  He turned the corner, and found Mikey in front of him. 

Mikey looked limp, as if he’d been in action for hours and not minutes.  And Mikey’s legs and feet were bare. 

Scott raised his brows, and grinned at him.  “Mikey, you shouldn’t have!” he joked. 

“Got covered in petrol.”

He slung the AK and moved quickly to Michael’s side.  The fire would be a barrier for the enemy as well as for them.  They couldn’t get past it, but the bad guys couldn’t either.  They had to find another way out. 

“We’ve got to get out of here before the place burns down,” Michael said.

“Got a civvie in the north-west corner.” He jerked a thumb at the door.  “Won’t come out.”  He led off through the dark building, hearing the rumble of fire.  He kept his eyes open for more targets, but he saw nothing until he was back at the door. 

“You in there!” he yelled through the door. “We’re friends!” 

Stonebridge banged on the door.  “Oy!  We’ve got to get out of here!  The building is on fire!  Fire!  _Feuer!_ ”

“Zero,” Scott yelled.  “You got eyes yet?” 

“ _Negative, Bravo One, no eyes on you_.” 

Something moved on the other side of the door.  It opened. 

Scott hadn’t seen his face until now, just his back.  He was big, and he had deep brown skin, but his lips were blanched grey.  His eyes were wide with fear but his mind was in them – not in a blind panic any more, thank fuck. 

He sniffed the air, and his face went even more slack.  He yelled something in Afrikaans and stepped out of the cupboard. 

No time for introductions.  “We gotta get out of here,” Scott said.  “Come on!”  He grabbed the Panic Mechanic by the shoulder and shoved him ahead of him.  The man went, stumbling along at first, and then speeding up, his footsteps gathering speed. 

Stonebridge followed, limping barefoot.  They went out into the corridor. 

The Panic Mechanic turned left, towards the front door, but Scott grabbed at his shoulder.  “No!” he yelled into his face.  “Other way!”

The man yelled back at him, gesturing wildly and threw his hand off. 

“We don’t know if they’re gone!” Scott yelled into his face.  “Bad guys!” He raised his hand, and mimed holding a gun, and then mimed strafing a room, “Bang-bang-bang-bang!  We go out the back door!  Back door!” 

He saw understanding in the wild roll of his eyes.  _Fire in here, death out there._   He wasn’t sure how much English the Panic Mechanic understood, but he got _that_. 

The man shouted back, waving his hands over his head, sketching an indication of bigness.  He wasn’t in a blind panic any more, but he was scared shitless of _something_.  A very big thing, and it frightened the shit out of this guy.  

“Back door,” Scott said, pointing.  “We gotta go out of the back door.”  He pushed ahead, leaving the panic mechanic to follow. 

Scott led the way to the back, with both of them on his heels, close behind.  The smoke was beginning to fill the air, thick and acrid with the oils and chemicals of the garage.  He couldn’t see it, but he could smell it and taste it and feel it stinging in his eyes.

“ _Bravo team, state your position!_ ”

“We’re in a fucking burning building, what the fuck do you _think_ our position is?” Scott snarled back. 

He reached the kitchen.  The door was closed, and he trotted up to it, with them both close at his back.  Air, and safety, and escape, and light…

Light…

He stopped his hand just short of the doorhandle.  One fist flew up in the STOP signal. 

Stonebridge bashed into Scott’s back.  Mechanic made a frustrated bubbling noise.  He lunged forward, hand shooting out to the door handle.  Stonebridge snatched Mechanic’s wrist, freezing his grab in mid-air.

Scott turned to stare at him. 

Stonebridge had his elbow over his nose and mouth.  His eyes were little pin-pricks, reflecting the light that gleamed in through the kitchen’s frosted glass.  The motion sensor, picking up movement outside the door…

“ _Wat nou_?” Mechanic hissed, his hand still trapped inches from the doorhandle.  He didn’t need translation: the strangled terror in his voice said it all. 

“They’re on the other side of the door,” Scott breathed.  He mimed toward the door with the Glock, and waved the barrel at the lit window.  “Baddies.  Outside.” 

The AK was almost empty.  He took out his Glock, and popped in his spare mag.  He could fire out the windows.  He could lay down suppressive fire with the last of the AK’s ammo, long enough for Mikey and Mechanic to get out of the door… but they would be facing AK 47s … and with nearly twenty yards of open ground to cross before the cover of the canal.  No.  “We gotta wait.” 

He saw the tremor of terror in Mechanic’s face.  He burbled something in Afrikaans, shaking his head wildly, and throwing his hand back toward the heart of the building.  “Nee, nee, nee,” he rattled off a stream of Afrikaans, and made that big-thing gesture with his other hand.  And then Scott got it. 

Stonebridge got it too.  “Something in here’s going to blow up!”

“Ja-ja-ja-ja,” Mechanic said.  “Now-now-now!”

“Oh fuck!” Scott said, staring at Mechanic.  Something in here was going to blow up… somewhere in a building that was already burning … somewhere in a building that had already seen multiple bursts of small-arms fire… 

Mechanic tried to clamp his hand back on the doorhandle.

“No!” Stonebridge said, clamping down on his wrist again.  “Not that way!”

“Fuck!”  Scott tried to think. 

They couldn’t hide somewhere for the fire to burn out.  They couldn’t wait until the bad guys went away.  They were all out of easy options.  He picked up the AK.  “Right.  I’ll put down fire.  Mikey, you run for it.  Take him, I’ll cover you as long as I c– !” 

And then Mechanic pulled his hand free of Stonebridge’s grasp, wrenching himself backwards and throwing himself into the back of the kitchen.  He cried out, sharply.  “Come _hierso!_   Come!” 

He turned, and broke out of the kitchen. 

Scott found himself staring at Stonebridge.  “You gonna trust this guy?”

“You going to jump a couple of AK’s?” 

“Christ.”  He threw the AK back onto his shoulder.  “When you put it that way…” 

They turned and ran after Mechanic. 

Back down the corridor.  The smoke was thick enough to choke on, thick spiky needles in the corners of his eyes, scratching at his throat.  He coughed, trying to cover his mouth with his arm, and put his head down, following the silhouette of Mechanic.  He zig-zagged through the building, through a maze made worse by gathering smoke, a deathtrap of blind corners and sharp edges and dead-ends. 

Never mind the explosion, they were all going to die of smoke inhalation … there wasn’t much air left.  The smoke was thick enough to blot out the moonlight, thick enough that he followed Mechanic by the sound of his coughing.  He went around a corner by feel, and across a floor that crunched under his boots, and there in front of him was light…

A great golden square of smoke and light…

“No fucking way,” he coughed.  It was the door to the garage.

Mechanic was down on hands and knees in the doorway.  His arm was up, holding the corner of his shirt over his mouth.  His other hand pointed out of the doorway.  “There!  Floor!”  he yelled. 

Then he dived forward under the golden cloud of smoke on hands and knees and scurried out. 

Stonebridge followed without hesitation.

“Fuck!”  Scott was alone, staring up through the doorway to the roof of the garage. 

The fire had taken root in the rafters, roaring with vile power across the steel beams.  Its heat churned across his face.  Something up there was fuelling it, feeding it, and it was growing stronger like a living thing.  It would suck out all the air in their pocket of life, and soon it would come down to earth, seeking them out.  “I fucking hate fire!”  he rasped. 

 Stonebridge was a shadow on the other side of the floor, bending low over something on the floor.  Scott tossed the AK away, and scrambled out on hands and knees.  The concrete jarred painfully at his knee-caps, and rasped at the skin of his hands as he scuttled across as fast as he could. 

The thing on the floor was a thick plate of blackened steel.  He fetched up at Mikey’s side just as Mikey put the muzzle of his gun to a padlock looped around a bolt, and pulled the trigger.  The ricochet spanged away, and Mikey and Mechanic put their fingers under the edge of the plate and pulled it up.  It lifted up from the concrete like opening the cover of a book

Scott grabbed hold of the upper edge of the plate as it lifted to the vertical.  He got up on his hands and knees, lifting his head up into the cloud of smoke.  “Go!” he rasped, through watering eyes.  He would hold it up so they got in. 

Mikey shoved Mechanic under the plate.  “Go, go, go!” he yelled at Mechanic, who disappeared behind the plate.  Then Mikey threw his legs in and lowered himself.  “Scott!” 

Scott left his side of the plate, and scrambled around.  The hole was a black square, the depths flickering in the firelight like a deep well. Air hit his face  – a  draught of outside air rising, sucked in by the fire’s insatiable hunger for oxygen.   

Mikey was standing waist-deep in the hole now, balancing on something under the lip.  Scott lowered himself ass-first, alongside him, letting himself down by his arms.  He felt around with his feet, fumbling with his toe against Mikey’s legs and the sides of the well.  His left boot toe found something hard, something solid, and he lowered his weight onto it.  He was secure, pressed close to Mikey, both balancing on the same footrest. 

“Lower away!” he yelled to Mikey, and they backed down into the hole, bringing the steel plate down over their heads like the trapdoor of a roof crawlspace.  The plate clamped into place with a solid clank. 

It was black as pitch down here, and cold.  He dropped down the ladder, feeling his way.  Mikey came down close beside him.  The fire roared away on the other side.  With the metal plate between them, he could now realize just how hungrily it had been screaming for their blood.  “Fuck, I hate fire!” he gulped. 

“This way, this way…”  Mechanic yelled.

“Got a torch,” Stonebridge said.  A moment later the little grey light of his torch flicked on and darted around them.  Mikey’s pale face glowed in the gloom, but Mechanic was almost hidden, only the whites of his eyes picking out his dark face. 

There were in a shallow-roofed black tunnel, walled with rough cinderblocks.  It stank of petrol and shit, and the roof was too low to stand upright.  “Does this go out?” Michael asked.  He gestured with his hand, pointing. 

Mechanic nodded.  “Outside,” he agreed.  He pointed down the other end, to where the dark swallowed up the torchlight. 

“Guess we go down there…” Michael said.

They shuffled down it in single file.  “Zero,” Mikey said, sounding almost constipated with the effort of not panting.  “We’re in a tunnel under the warehouse.  Zero, do you read?”

No reply. 

“What the fuck is this place?”  Scott demanded. 

They followed the torch. 

They didn’t have far to go. 

The tunnel opened into cool air and muddy gold light.  It ran no further than to the edge of the canal.  The exit was blocked by a galvanised steel grid and curls of razor-wire.  They’d have to cut their way out of that, with the wire-cutters in Scott’s left thigh cargo pocket. 

At least the air was cool, rushing by them in a breeze.  They weren’t in any danger here, from the fire anyway. 

But if the bad guys knew about this drain, if they knew there was another way out of there, they’d be down here looking for them in a second.   

“Hold it,” Stonebridge said, flicking off the torch.  

Scott stopped Mechanic with a hand on his arm.  They listened, in the dark.

His radio crackled, and Richmond’s voice came in his ear.  “ _Bravo team, do you copy?_ ”  she said.  “ _Bravo team, please respond!_ ” 

He felt for his radio, and clicked the transmit button on and off, on and off.  She would pick that up, and read it as _can’t talk now_.    

“ _Bravo team, we copy you_.”  She sounded relieved. 

They could hear echoing bangs from the distant – deep hollow booms.  Parts of the warehouse collapsing in on itself.  There were no voices, no sounds of car engines rumbling.  The baddies had gone.  Leaving them to the fire.

And then – _BOOM!_

The explosion was painfully loud, a clap of agony against his eardrums. 

The canal wall was briefly brightly lit, the shadow of the rim splashed in gold silhouette against the concrete.  The concussion smacked at them from behind, the pressure wave rocketing down the tunnel.   Scott clutched the wall of the tunnel for support.  His boot slipped in something slimy, but he caught himself without falling. 

If they’d been _in that_ , they’d be dead right now. 

His ears were ringing with the song of a million crickets.   “Jesus,” he said, testing that he could still hear himself.  “Shit, what the fuck were you people keeping in there? TNT?”

“Zero,” Mikey said.  “Please be advised that the building has just blown up.”

“ _What?_ ”  Richmond repeated. 

“ _Please restate your position?_ ” Sinclair asked, sounding incredulous.

“Blew up, exploded, went ka-blooey!” Scott barked.  “It’s fucking gone!  The whole fucking building just blew up!”  He stuck his finger in his ear and tried to wiggle the ringing tinnitus out.

“They’ll think we died in that.”  Mikey said, from far away beyond Scott’s tinnitus. 

“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Scott said.  “Before the cops show up.”   

“Think the targets have gone?”

“They don’t want to chat to the SAPS any more’n we do,” Scott said.  “What’s wrong with your foot?”

“I stood on something sharp.”

“Soon as we get out of here I’ll…”  He was interrupted by Mechanic’s sudden movement.  He collapsed against the side of the tunnel and bent double.  A moment later he heard the sound of violent retching. 

The smell struck Scott’s nostrils. 

“Ah, _there_ we go,” Michael said, mildly. 

Scott reached out a hand and clapped it on Mechanic’s back, feeling his rock hard muscles.  He was shaking.  “Easy there, buddy.  Get it all out, it’s okay.”

Mechanic blurbled something apologetic, and then ducked and threw up again.  Scott felt the whiplash of his spine under his hand.  The shaking didn’t stop, but they slowed, and firmed into deep shuddering sobs.  He was crying. 

Shock, Scott thought. 

“It’s okay, buddy,” he chanted.  “This is normal.  Just feel it.  It’s okay.  There’s no shame in it.  Fear is normal.  Feel it, and ride it out.  This is normal.  You got that?  This is normal.  It’ll pass.  You just gotta ride it out.” 

He wasn’t sure how much the man understood, or if it was just the tone of Scott’s voice,  but the wheezing sobs were choked back, and stopped. 

“I’s sorry, _ek’s jammer_ , I’s sorry, I’s sorry, _ek’s jammer_.”

“It’s okay.  We all get scared.  It’s normal.  It’s what you do with it that counts.” 

“I runned away!”

That was something he’d have to live with for the rest of his life, Scott figured.  But there wasn’t anything wrong with it.  He was a civvie, not a soldier.  The whole point of soldiering was so that poor old schlubs like mechanics and hairdressers didn’t _need_ to deal with violent death. 

 “Don’t be dumb,” he said, keeping the pressure of his hand on Mechanic’s back.  “You got nothing to be ashamed of.  You kept your head screwed on when the shit went down, and you got our asses out of there.  You just gotta take what you’re feeling now, and look at it, and ride it out.”

Then again, he must have incredibly fast reflexes, to have gotten out of that killing room when the firing started.  Most people’s reactions when being shot at for the first time is to freeze up.  He’d seen people freeze with incredulity and indecision, and get shot at point-blank range by weapons that couldn’t possibly be real.  When the dreams started, Scott figured, that would help Mechanic cope with it a bit. 

“Listen,” he said.  “You got nothing to be ashamed of.  You kept your head screwed on when the shit went down, and you got our asses out of there.  Mikey and me are alive now, cos you kept your head screwed on.  Don’t you forget that, buddy.” 

“You not scared.” 

“Course we’re scared.  You think we don’t take cover when we’re being shot at?  Fear is normal.  Okay?  It’s what you do with it that counts.  You just gotta feel it and ride it out and not let it take over.  This is normal.  It’ll pass.”

Mechanic made a deep burbling sound, and then sniffed, and coughed.

 

* * *

 

 

In the Crib, Dalton paced.  “We need eyes over that warehouse!”  she snapped. 

“Ma’am, there’s nothing to look _with_!” Richmond said.  “We won’t have satellite coverage for another forty minutes!”

“There must be something!”  Dalton paced back and forth in agitation behind Primary One.  “Traffic cameras – security cameras.  Arnisimov cannot just disappear again!”

“I’ll draw a ring of forty minutes around the location,” Baxter said, “And see what’s moving in that ring when we get eyes-on.”

“Do it,” Dalton said.  She paced away from the table, and then back.  “Damn!  We were so close!” 

“ _Zero, Bravo Two.  We have eyes on Location_ ,” Stonebridge said over the Crib’s radio.  “ _All clear, no hostiles on this side.  I repeat, no hostiles in sight from this side_.” 

“Bravo Team,” Richmond said.  “What’s your position?” 

“ _We’re out of the tunnel, and lying-up in the canal_.”  Stonebridge came back, immediately.  “ _We can hear sirens coming_.” 

“ _We’re going to be ass-deep in cops in about five minutes_ ,” Scott snapped, “ _And we’ve got a civvie witness who doesn’t speak enough English to rub his dick!  Advice would be good, people!_ ”

“Bravo, we do not have eyes on your position,” Richmond said, urgently.  “Repeat, do not have eyes on you.” 

And for every second that they had no eyes, Arnisimov drew further and further away from their net.  He had a lying-up point somewhere.  And he was going to bolt down it before Twenty got a trace on him.  Dalton stomped away from the table, and then spun around to face the screen.

“Is the Landcruiser operational?”  she asked.

“ _No eyes on Landcruiser_ ,” Stonebridge said. 

“Break out of your location and head for the Landcruiser,”  Dalton ordered.  “If not, you’re going to be making your exfil on foot until you can acquire wheels.”

“ _Negative_ ,” Scott said.  “ _Bravo Two’s not going anywhere on foot.”_  

“Bravo One, are you countermanding my orders?”

“ _I’m not countermanding shit, lady!_ ” Scott snapped, irritable, the anger in his voice rasping over the radio.  “ _Bravo Two has a splinter the size of Rhode Island stuck in his foot!  He’s not going anywhere.”_  

 

* * *

 

 

Stonebridge put his elbows in the fringe of dry grass lining the edge, balancing his Sig to cover Scott.  Scott scooted up over the edge of the canal, and was gone, running low in a jinking zig-zag for the nearest cover.  A moment later Scott was out of sight.

Taljaard Unpronounceable was a smoking ruin.  Most of the thin steel walls had fallen out with the explosion, debris scattering the yard.  The force of the blast had blown out most of the fire, but smoke still hung in the air, and red flames flickered where the fire was trying to get a grip on the wreckage and resurrect itself. 

Stonebridge lowered himself back into the canal.  “Now we wait,” he said to their civilian. 

He bent over to look at his foot with his torch, and peeled his sock off.  His foot was grimy but he couldn’t see any injury.  Whatever he’d stood on, it hadn’t been a piece of glass – and it wasn’t the size of Rhode Island for all Scott’s hyperbole.  Maybe a shard of steel? 

He could feel it there, if he lowered his weight onto the sole of his foot, but as long as he walked on his toes he’d be okay.  Not his worst injury, by far, but certainly the dirtiest.  He and Scott had a date tonight, and it was going to involve tweezers and a whole lot of antiseptic.  How very romantic.  He smiled grimly.

“ _I’ve reached the Landcruiser, and it’s drivable_ ,” Scott rasped on his radio.  “ _Side windows are all out, windshield’s cracked, but it’s good._ ”

“Roger that,” Zero said. 

“ _Bringing it around to Bravo Two_.” 

Their witness was watching him with wide eyes.  “What’s your name?” Stonebridge asked him. 

“Johan.”

“My name is Michael,” he said. 

Johan reached a hand across, and they shook hands.  “Please to meet you,” Johan said. 

“I work for British Military Intelligence.  We’ve been trying to stop Conrad Knox.  Those trucks you worked on are part of a terrorist plot to...”

“Huh?”  the man asked, blankly. 

“Oh.  Bugger.” 

Johan didn’t have enough English to debrief.  Stonebridge knew the signs of someone who has learned a bit of a language in school, but since then his only exposure to the language has been on the telly. 

And Stonebridge didn’t speak a word of Afrikaans.  He’d learned a bundle of languages in his time in Special Forces, but Afrikaans wasn’t one of them. 

“Er, Zero,” he said, to his radio, feeling like the bearer of bad news.  “I think we’re going to have a bit of a problem with the language barrier here.” 

“ _Roger that_ ,” Richmond said, without comment. 

Johan watched his conversation with the expression of a man who has just realized that the only other person in his foxhole is talking animatedly with an imaginary friend. 

Stonebridge pointed to himself.  “British.  Soldier.  Fighting Conrad Knox.” 

_That_ got across the language barrier.  The whites of Johan’s eyes flared in the dark, and his teeth bared.  “Conrad _fokken_ Knox _!_ ” he snarled.  “ _Fokker!  Verraaier!  Moordenaar!_ ” 

He didn’t understand most of Johan’s words, but he didn’t need to.  The tone was unmistakeable.  “Good news is, we have a willing ally here,” Stonebridge said into his radio. 

The rumble of an engine on the other side of the canal got their attention.  Stonebridge scrambled up to stare over the lip. 

The Landcruiser was coming around in a high-speed turn, lights off but wheels spinning.  “Get in!” Scott yelled. 

“Here’s our ride!” Stonebridge said, jostling at Johan’s elbow to get him back on his feet.  “Come on!” 

They scrambled up the edge of the canal.  Stonebridge hobbled along on one-and-a-half feet to the car, covering them both with the Sig.

The side windows of the car were all gone.  But something must have shielded the car from the worst of the blast – the windscreen was still up.  “Don’t put your feet on the floor!” Scott yelled through the open frame.  “Glass!” 

They pulled open the car’s doors and threw themselves in.  Stonebridge threw himself into the backseat, and sat up on his knees with his gun up.  Scott didn’t wait for them to shut the doors, he gunned the car’s engine and pulled it around in a sharp turn.  “The fire brigade’s coming,” he yelled over his shoulder.  “We got to get out of Dodge.” 

The slipstream from the broken windows battered Stonebridge’s face.  Scott spun the wheel, gravel spitting, and pushed the car into a high gear, out of the yard and onto the road.  They battered along, heading away from the fire, away from the incoming sirens, away from Upington. 

“Yo, Mikey! You get anything from our new best friend?”

“His name is Johan.  Johan – this is Scott.” 

“Hey there, Johan.  Give us a shake?”  Scott took one hand off the wheel and pushed it out, and Johan clapped his own massive paw around it and gave it a shake, clearly bemused.  “So what have you got to say for yourself, buddy?”

“ _Verskoon my?_ ” 

“Ah, yeah, no English.  No problemo, buddy.  Ve haff vays of makink zem tock, ja?  Ja?  Ja?  Heh-hehhh!”  He cackled to himself and jiggled in the seat.  “We’re going to go around the long way.  Zero!  You got eyes on the Targets yet?” 

“ _Negative, Bravo team; best guess is they did what you’re doing_.” 

 “Great minds think alike!  What do you wanna bet we run into those assholes on the road?”  Stonebridge recognised the signs of Scott coming down from a combat adrenalin high.  _Yee-fuckin’-ha!_

He didn’t feel high himself – he felt only the same flat feeling he’d felt when he was receiving fire in the reception room.  His combat adrenalin and rage had drained out of him, dribbling away into nothing.  If they overtook the Targets and ran into them in the road, he realized he really didn’t care.  He just didn’t have the energy.  If he didn’t survive the next enemy contact… so what?  There would only be another battle after that, and another after that, and another, and another…

Then again, if he didn’t care about himself, he still couldn’t let himself stop paying attention.  Scott was with him.  Scott relied on him in combat to hold up his end of their partnership, and Scott enjoyed living his life far too much.  He couldn’t let Scott down just because _he_ didn’t care if he lived or died. 

He forced the gloom down, wrapped it deep under layers of self-control, and refocused his mind on the job at hand. 

 “ _Bravo Two_ ,” Richmond said, breaking into his mood.  “ _Put me onto our witness.  I’ll have a go_.”

“You speak Afrikaans?”  Richmond seemed to speak about half a million languages, fluently – the reason she’d been picked out for Special Forces in the first place.  But he hadn’t known she spoke Afrikaans. 

“ _Afrikaans shares about ninety percent of its vocab with Dutch.  I think I can make myself understood.  Give him your earbug_.”  

“Wilco,”  he said.  He stuck his finger in his ear, and pulled out his earpiece.  He reached over the back of the seat and clapped Johan on the shoulder to get his attention.  “You… Johan!”  When Johan turned around, he held out the earpiece so he could see it.  “Put this in your ear.”

Johan took it, gingerly, his eyebrows low in doubt. 

“It’s a radio.”  Stonebridge fished down the front of his shirt, and pulled out his radio on its chain.  “You talk, she’ll hear.  Put that in your ear.”  He pointed to his ear, and then to the radio, to make his meaning absolutely clear. 

Johan still looked doubtful, but he held the earpiece up to his ear between finger and thumb.  He said something to Stonebridge in Afrikaans in a rueful tone of voice, probably something like _Yuck, English earwax_ , and then stuck the earpiece in. 

Stonebridge could see the moment he heard Richmond’s voice echo in his head, because his eyes lit up with surprise and understanding. 

“ _Hellooo_ ,” he said, sounding pleased with the sound of the lovely lady on the other side. 

 

* * *

 

 

Dalton left Richmond talking away down her radio with their contact.  She took Sinclair by the elbow, turning their conversation into a private consult. 

“We need to get down there, ASAP,” she said.  “The Bravos are too heavily outnumbered.”

“And Stonebridge does not seem to be firing on all cylinders,” Sinclair agreed, his voice as soft as hers.

“How rapidly can the Crib be moved, as it is?” 

“An hour, maybe less because we don’t have all the equipment up.” 

“I want you to get to work finding us an alternative location to set up.” 

“I thought you might say that,” Sinclair said.  “So I started calling around this morning with a cover story.  I have access to an abandoned farmhouse two hours downriver from Upington, outside the town of Naamloseput.  I can call the owner first thing in the morning, and let him know we’re coming.”

“Good man!”  She turned on her heel, and surveyed the Crib – blue lights and flickering screens, and Richmond bent over her headset, trying to fit her Dutch to Johan’s Afrikaans.  “As soon as Julia’s done, start packing up.  I want to be on the road by one a.m.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” He turned away. 

She walked up behind Julia Richmond. 

Richmond turned in her chair.  “His name is Johan Rondganger, and he’s a welder.  But he did work on Nostromo.  Knox told them the same story he gave Adonis, about little children dying of malaria, and delivering DDT with rockets.”

 “Are the trucks operational?”

“Fully, he says,” Richmond said.  “They tested them with four-ton weights before they handed them over, to make sure the hydraulic lifts work.  He says when they collected them, Arnisimov’s men plugged something in with a laptop and ran some sort of software test to make sure they’re compatible with the Spiders.” 

“Adonis’s guidance software.” 

“Each missile can be programmed from inside the truck’s cab, and the cabs have been reinforced so that the drivers won’t get fried in their own rocket exhaust,” Richmond said.  “All they’re missing now is fuel … and the warheads.”

“He’s our first material witness to Knox’s plans.  He knows exactly what he built for Knox, regardless of the bullshit story, and he knows Knox killed his colleagues.” 

“He has one heck of a motive for helping us bring Knox down,” Richmond agreed.

 “Ask him if he’s willing to go into hiding, in a safe house, under the protection of the British High Commission in Pretoria?  Ask him if he’s willing to testify in court against Conrad Knox?” 

Richmond turned to her screen, and spoke into it. 

The reply that came back through the loudspeakers was unequivocal. 

“ _Fok, ja!  Ja!_ ” 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

## MONDAY NIGHT

## UPINGTON, NORTHERN CAPE

 

Scott leaned over the window, putting the last scrap of duct-tape across the windscreen.  The Landcruiser was good to go. 

The explosion might have knocked the glass out, but the car was tough.  The engine had run sweet for him all the way back to Upington, and there was plenty of gas in the tank.  They’d bashed out all the last scraps of glass.  In the dark, it would look at if the driver just really liked the wind in his hair. 

Johan had the wheel, and he was looking around the cab, familiarising himself with the new vehicle. 

“Now, remember,” Michael said, through the open window.  “Don’t stop, except for petrol, until you get to Pretoria.  And don’t speed.”

“Ja.  Don’t stop,” Johan agreed.

“Got the address?” Scott asked, dropping the roll of duct tape back into the duffelbag. 

Johan patted his pocket. 

“Got the guy’s name?” 

“Peter Smiff.”

“Smith,” Michael corrected. 

“Ja, Smiff.” 

That was as good as they were going to get, Scott realized.  “And don’t call your mother,” he added.  “ _Nobody_ must know you’re alive.  Nobody.  They must think you’re dead.”

“Ja, I’m ghost,” Johan agreed and gave a hollow laugh that hardened into an angry grunt.  “Give _fokken_ Knox the fright of his life.”

“That’s the spirit.” Scott stepped away from the window, and Johan started up the engine.  They stood side by side, and watched him pull away. 

“I feel like I’m watching a baby bird leaving its nest,” Michael said. 

Scott muttered,  “Sure hope he doesn’t get pulled over, ‘cause of those windows.”  The Landcruiser gathered speed, and turned away around the corner out of sight. 

“He’ll get there,” Mikey said.  “The only traffic enforcement in this country is speed cameras.  As long as you drive under the limit, you can pretty much do whatever you like.”

“Sounds fun.” 

Scott picked up the duffel bag, and they turned and went inside. 

Magda was back behind her reception desk.  She looked up, forming her face into a professional greeting smile, and then pulled the most perfect double-take Scott had ever seen.  She goggled at Michael, clearly trying to come up with a polite way to say _What the fuck happened to your pants?_ and then gave up and tried to pretend she couldn't see it.  _  
_

Scott couldn’t blame her for staring.  Mikey looked and probably felt ridiculous.  Scott was gratified to see his face go red in embarrassment.  Above the waist, he wore his T-shirt and jacket.  Above the waist, he looked weatherbeaten, muscular and very tough.  But _below_ the waist… the bottom end of his jacket hung just below the level of his underpants.  His legs were almost pink, they were so pale; long English salamander legs. 

“We got into a traffic accident,” Scott said, grinning, without being asked.  “Car’s a wreck, but we’re okay.” He gave Mikey a grin. 

“We’re going to need to rent a car tomorrow,” Stonehenge said, refusing to rise to meet his sense of humour.

“I can recommend you a good place,” she said. 

They went up the stairs.  Michael limped along, his foot clearly hurting him.  He rebuffed Scott’s attempt to take his elbow, but he allowed Scott to steer him into Scott’s room.

Scott closed the door behind him.  “We gotta get that thing out of your foot,” he said. 

“Time for a brew first.”  To his astonishment, Michael limped over to the kettle on the desk, and flipped the knob to start it going.  He stood bare-legged, staring at the kettle as it began to buzz, his injured foot half-raised.

“Now’s not the time for tea!” Scott said.

“Now is _definitely_ the time for tea,” Michael said, opening the cupboards over the kettle in search of mugs.  “I need a nice hot cuppa.” 

“There’s a mini-bar,” Scott told him.  “Have a shot of something.”

“I don’t want a shot of something,” Michael insisted.  “I want a cup of tea.”

Fuck, tea.  Scott sat down on the edge of the bed.  Sometimes a man had to yield to a force greater than mere sense.  He’d already learned never to interrupt Limeys when they wanted tea.  What was the first thing they’d done after Latif attacked the Crib in Budapest?  Make tea.  What was the first thing they’d done after Connelly killed Kate?  Make tea.  What was the first thing they’d done after getting out of Kosovo?  You guessed her, Chester.  Make tea.

Any time something goes ass-over-tit, sit down, and have a nice cuppa.  He'd seen a few English tanks and APCs, and they even had a kettle installed so that even a tank crew could sit down, and have a nice cuppa.  

He watched Mikey busy himself with the precise, practiced movements of tea-bags and teaspoons of sugar. 

Maybe it was the sugar, he thought.  Or getting something hot inside.  Or maybe it was just the soothing mechanics of doing something boring and predictable with his hands, something bland, something mundane, something from _this_ side of the rabbit-hole.  A predictable ritual, to steady the nerves... 

“This is a non-smoking room,” Michael said, without taking his eyes off the careful pouring of milk. 

Scott looked down at his hands, and realized he was just about to strike his lighter on a cigarette.  “Fuck me,” he muttered to himself.  He put the lighter away, and slid the cigarette back into its pack.  

“There,” Michael said.  He turned around, a cup in each hand.  He set one down on the little table next to the bed for Scott.  “Get that down your neck.”

“Tea,” Scott grumbled, picking up the mug and staring into it.  

“ _Bleugh_ ,” Mikey said.  He had taken a sip, but now he was staring into his mug, as if there was something hideous floating in it.  “What the hell?  Oh.  It’s _rooibos.”_   He narrowed his eyes, clamped his jaw shut, and set his cup down again.  “Rooibos," he said with disgust.  

Scott took another sip, carefully.  It wasn’t the usual tea, he realized.  The taste was different – more nutty.  Not a bad taste.  Not coffee, but not bad at all.  And above all, best of all, the cherry on the top, the _oh-so-English_ Michael Stonebridge didn’t like it.  _Fucktastic!_  

Michael was putting the mug down, and walking away with the air of a man who wasn’t having any more of _that,_ thank you very _much_.  He picked up the little box of teabags by the kettle, and turned it around so that he could stare angrily at the label.  “Rooibos.  Why the blazes is that in here?”  He sounded disgusted. 

“I _like_ it,” Scott said, emphatically.   

“You’re hopeless.”  Michael dumped the box back into the cupboard and banged the door closed as if banishing it from sight and mind.

“I must get some of this for the Crib!" Scott decided.  He took another sip, and put the cup down on the table.  “Let’s get that thing out of your foot.” 

He got up, and went in search of the first aid kit in his Bergen.  When he came back again, Michael was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding his foot up on his knee.  He had turned the foot upside down, and he was staring at his own sole severely, as if it was as disappointing as the tea.   He still hadn’t bothered putting on any pants.

Scott dumped the first aid kit on the carpet, and knelt down in front of Mikey’s bare knees. 

His leg was broad-boned and muscular, and lightly fuzzed with golden hairs.  Unfortunately, on the end of that nice leg was a typical infantryman’s foot.  The sight of that fugly foot was startling.  It looked like something that should be stomping around under a rhino, not under a sculpted stud like Michael Stonebridge.  He should be familiar with Mikey’s body by now, but that foot was _something else_. 

“We’ve been here before,” he said, to cover his feelings.  He unscrewed the bottle of antiseptic and poured a measure of it into a kidney-bowl.  “Remember the Royal Lotus?  Only back then it was you doing me.”  He poured a little of it across the heel of Mikey’s foot. 

“Yes- _sssss_.”  Michael hissed as the antiseptic stung his skin.  He clamped his hands tightly around his own foot, holding it still. 

“It’s only taken – what, a year-and-a-half? – and here we are back again.” Scott plucked off a wad of cotton wool.  He bent down again, dipped the cottonwool in some antiseptic, and started dabbing gently at the filthy foot with the wad.  Gently, gently, gently, clean away some of the muck and sweat so that he could see what he was doing.

“If I’d known you’d be sticking around being an arsehole and getting on my nerves for another year and a ha- _AH_ -alf,” Michael said, a sudden lift in his voice as Scott’s fingers brushed something painful, “I’d have pushed the damned bullet further in.” 

“You’ll just have to wait until it’s your turn again.” 

“Is that what we’re doing, then?  Taking turns?” 

“Didn’t notice you complaining earlier,” Scott grinned.  He peered closer.  “I see it.  It’s a piece of wire.  Hang in there, I’m going to pull it out.”

He picked up the tweezers, set the ends together and drew on the little black line sticking out of his foot.  Firm pressure, and the wire came out obediently. 

“Congratulations!  You found an iron filing,” he said, holding the tweezers up. 

Michael frowned at the little scrap of metal.  “How does such a small thing hurt so fucking much?” 

Scott grinned at his face, and flicked his brows up and down.  “You want a Purple Heart and a morphine shot, buddy?” 

“Oh, I _think_ I can struggle through.” 

Scott swabbed a little more, just to make sure the spot was clean.  He squeezed a little of their antibiotic cream over the spot, and closed up with a bandage to stop Stupidbridge walking more dirt into the little puncture.  “There you are, all better.” 

“Thank you.” 

“I’d kiss it better, if it didn’t look like something that belonged on Nellie the Elephant.”

“Fuck you, too, Scott.” 

He laughed, hearing the affection in Mikey’s voice.  Spontaneously, he bent over and dropped a kiss to the top of that knee.  Mikey’s skin was warm against his lips.

 “Er…” Michael said, sounding uncertain.  “Maybe not right now?  I feel like I got hit by a train.” 

“Dude, sometimes a kiss is just a kiss.”  He unfolded his legs, and stood up, using the same golden knee as a lever.  “Go to bed, asshole.”

Michael looked up at him.  His eyes were clear, and boyish.  He looked much younger than he was, suddenly.  Muscular and macho, yes; but also very young, and no longer sure of his place in the world. 

Scott was struck by the odd tenderness that surged inside him.  He _loved_ this man, he realized.  He wouldn't be here for anyone else.  He wouldn’t be _doing_ what he was doing for anyone else, and he didn’t even have a way to tell him so.  He loved Michael Stonebridge.

He put both hands on the sides of Michael’s neck, and stooped down over him.  This kiss he laid on the top of Michael’s head like a benediction.  Michael's head was hard, but his buzzcut was as soft as velvet against his lips. 

Scott released his head, and stood back.  “It’s late.  Go to bed.”   

 

* * *

  

Stonebridge walked into his own room and closed the door.  One light had been left on for him by room service, but he turned on the big ceiling light, so that the room glared back at him like a laboratory.  It was almost a carbon copy of Scott’s room, lacking only Scott’s mess.  His Bergen sat on the end of the bed, not yet unpacked.

He made another cup of tea – _real_ tea this time, not hippie herbal nonsense – and sat down at the desk to drink it.  It was hot and sweet, but for once it didn’t calm him. 

He was tired, but he didn’t feel sleepy.  His nerves felt rough.  His brain was raw, overstuffed, but he didn’t think he could relax enough to sleep.  And even if he did sleep, he would only dream, like all the nights since Mog: trapped in the endless cycle of nightmares, waking, fretting, nightmares, waking...

He hadn’t cared if he lived or died, in the fire.  He had been ready to lie back and let himself die.  What on earth was he coming to, that he could think that? 

Kerry had loved him, and he wanted to go to her, but he had an idea she would not be pleased to see him so soon.  And he had unfinished business with Craig Hanson.  And Scott depended on him to hold up his half of their partnership.  And Conrad Knox was still somewhere out there in the desert with four nuclear weapons.  He had a job to do, yet he’d felt nothing but exhaustion and fatalistic carelessness in the warehouse. 

He closed his eyes… and suddenly he was aware of the smells of petrol, smoke and fresh blood that clung to his skin.  He smelled of fighting.  He smelled of war. 

He opened his eyes, sickened and stared around him.  The room was empty, but the walls seemed to glare back, blank and hostile.  His muscles were tense, a tightness around his head and neck warning him that he was in for a headache. 

He got up from the chair, stripped out of his clothes, and into the loose track pants and T-shirt he slept in. 

He could have another shower, and see if that relaxed him.  He could do anything, as long as he didn’t go off comms.  He could go for a run.  He could raid the mini-bar. He could drink it all, pour it down his throat, anaesthetise himself into sleep.  

But if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to hide it from Scott.  He’d have a hang-over in the morning, and Scott would be able to tell.  And he didn’t have an excuse for how he got it – he had nothing to celebrate.  He had no ready lie to slip like a screen between Scott’s curiosity and his guilty secret.  Scott would guess.  Scott had guessed what he had done with his razor back in Cape Town, and he would guess that he had dived into the mini-bar, and he would look at him with horror, or pity. 

If he did that, he would be too ashamed of himself to go and do the other thing he really wanted to do, which was go to Scott, right now.  He felt better around Scott.  Scott filled the hollowness inside him with his own vital energy.  He felt Scott’s warmth, when he was with Scott. 

He remembered the kiss, pressed like a blessing to the crown of his head.  That had been a kiss of love, not passion.  Scott loved him.  He _needed_ to be loved right now. 

He let himself out of his own room and limped back to Scott’s room.  He banged on the door with his fist.

A moment later, he heard the lock click, and Scott pulled it open.

The room was already dim.  Scott had stripped off his shirt, and his hair was damp from the shower.  His eyes flicked open in surprise, and then his body lounged lazily sideways against the door.  “That was quick,” he observed, one eyebrow coming up. 

“Can I sleep here tonight?” 

Scott pushed himself off the doorjamb and stepped back.  “Okay,” he said, casually, beckoning with a jerked thumb.  “Come on in.”

Stonebridge slipped in, and shut the door behind him.  “I don’t want to be alone.” 

“Yeah, I know.”  Scott turned away and walked to the bed. 

Stonebridge followed him.  “I need to be around someone.” 

“You don’t have to explain yourself.”  Scott pulled back the bedclothes and got into bed, rolling comfortably onto his side.  “You can take the floor, or you can scootch up with me.  Your choice.”

Stonebridge walked over to the other side of the bed.  He sat down, drew back the bedclothes and got in.  He lay on his side, tried to keep his legs straight so as not to encroach on Scott’s side of the bed.  Scott sat up on his elbow and turned off the bedside light. 

It was dark, and quiet.  He lay and listened to Scott’s breathing.  “Good night,” he said, into the dark. 

He heard Scott chuckle to himself.  And then the mattress bounced under him, and the bedclothes rustled. 

“Here,” Scott said.  His hand fell onto Stonebridge’s arm, and his warm body was against Stonebridge’s back.  “Gotcha,” he murmured, close behind Stonebridge’s head. 

“I don’t think I’m capable of…”

“I’m not after that, buddy.  Just sleep.  I’ve got you.” 

Warmth around him, and a solid body behind him, and Scott was with him.  He relaxed.  He was as safe as he was ever likely to get, ever again.  He sighed, and closed his eyes. 

The boardroom flashed back into his mind as soon as his eyes were closed.  Black blood and furniture stuffing, dead eyes staring at the dark.  His eyes snapped open again.

“What?” Scott said, from the darkness behind him. 

“Nothing.” 

“I felt that,” Scott said.  His arm slid around, his weight coming forward until he was cuddled close, a fortification around him, a bastion of warmth and protection. 

“It’s nothing.  Just a hiccup.”

He closed his eyes, but again the vision intruded.  Black blood, streaking the walls.  His retina itself was full of blood spatter patterns.  He opened his eyes. 

“Did you ever see the pictures from the Iranian Embassy Siege?” he asked.  “The after pictures?” 

“After your guys went in?” Scott said.  “Yeah.  Studied it in Delta.” 

“The boardroom of Taljaard looked like that.”

The darkness did not reply.    

“I’ll see Conrad Knox dead for that,” Stonebridge said, bitterly, filling in the silence.  “That wasn’t necessary.  That was just butchery.”

“The guy has nukes,” Scott said, reasonably.  His voice was quiet and level.  “He wants to kill millions, Mikey.  Shooting a bunch of mechanics is probably just collateral damage in his ledger.”

“It was murder.  Flat-out murder.”

“What are a couple of murders, when you’re playing the nuclear game?” 

“Don’t defend him, Scott!” Stonebridge said, his voice rising. 

“I’m not defending him.  I’m just pointing it out.  What’s a handful of murders to Knox, compared with what he _wants_ to do to a gazillion people?”

“It’s different,” Stonebridge said.  “To shoot a whole room of unarmed civilians like they were sick chickens… it’s just not _on_.”

“It’s no different,” Scott said.  “They’re just as dead, whether he has ‘em shot, or nukes ‘em.  The one’s not any more yuck than the other.  Murder’s murder.” 

“It _is_ different,” Stonebridge insisted.  He fought to come up with words to explain it.  “It is different.” 

“Is it?” Scott said, clearly thinking deeply.  “The difference is we’ve never actually _seen_ WMDs used in our lifetime.  _We_ haven’t seen total war, the way our grand-daddies did it.  _We_ tend to think about war on the small scale.  Goose Green, not Passchendaele.  Helmand, not Hiroshima.”  His voice rasped away in the dark, talking away to himself, in a rambling, ruminating way.  It was quite soothing, to lie here and listen to Scott burble away to himself.   “You can _see_ a room full of dead guys.  You can’t more than imagine a whole city full of dead guys.  The vision’s more disturbing than the idea.”

“I’ve _seen_ pictures of Hiroshima, thank you,” Stonebridge interrupted the monologue.

“We’ve seen pictures in black and white, of something that happened seventy years ago. There’s a difference between seeing something as history, and seeing it happen right in front of you.  The human mind doesn’t really fold itself around mass death real well.  I reckon the brain puts a little filter in there, just to stop us going mad.  Still.  You have to _make_ it different.  You gotta have cognitive… cognitive… I don’t know the word.  But you gotta draw those lines in your head, if you want to stay sane in this job.  Otherwise it’ll drive you nuts.  One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.  So I reckon that’s why there’s a difference between one room of dead guys, and a whole _city_ of rooms of dead guys.  Same as the difference between running around blowing shit up and shooting assholes in some piss-poor banana republic, compared with running around shooting assholes in, like, Hereford.” 

The vision hit Stonebridge hard, knocking the breath out of him with a physical shock. 

Kerry’s blood in his hands…  the vision took him away, blanked out his mind.  Kerry falling backwards from him… the police… the trauma room… the funeral… Kerry dying in front of him, a bullet wound in her silky stomach, dying in a puddle of her own blood as if she was just another casualty…

He doubled around his solar plexus, winded, with a gasp of pain. 

“What was that?”  Scott said. 

“Nothing.”  He folded around his pain, pressing both hands against his face. 

“I felt that.”  Scott sat up. 

“I’m fine.”

“The fuck you are.  You’re not fine.  Don’t come here and tell me you’re fine, because you’re not.”  Scott folded himself down and around him again, squeezing him close with both arms.  “Talk to me, buddy,” he breathed, close to Stonebridge’s ear.    

Scott had him.  Both arms were around him; one over his head and the other around his shoulder.  He was being held, surrounded with a fortress of softness and tenderness, and he couldn’t lie to Scott.  It was all too much, and he couldn’t choke down his feelings down any further. 

“I’ve been having flashbacks.”  The words came out on their own, with a gulp. 

“Flashbacks?”  He felt Scott sit up in the dark.  “Wait.  I gave you a flashback?  My big mouth!  I’m sorry, buddy.” 

“It’s fucking stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.  It happens!  I’m sorry, buddy.  I didn’t think.”    

“It _is_ stupid!” he complained.  “Every time I think I’m past it, they come back.  Every time I see blood, I go back to when Kerry … was shot.”  He choked on saying the word _died_. 

“Shit, dude.”

His confession kept coming, leaking in the private darkness, words welling up like tears. 

“And I’ve been having dreams.  I keep dreaming I’m in the park with Kerry, or I’m in the kill-house with Hanson. And that’s mad, because I wasn’t even _in_ the kill-house when it happened.  But I keep dreaming that I’m there, running around trying to find Craig before he shoots Kerry.   

The words wouldn’t stop.  He couldn’t see Scott’s face behind the veil of darkness.  He couldn’t see an expression of pity or shame or disgust that might stop his words from coming.  In the dark, he could make his confession. 

“And I keep seeing Hanson in front of my eyes.  Every time we go into action, all I see, the only thing in my head, is Hanson.  You want to know what happened on the bus?  I saw Hanson in front of me.  Hanson was there, and I was going to beat him to death.  I don’t know why I stopped.”

Scott’s voice was barely more than a whisper.  “I figured it was something like that.”

“Don’t tell anyone!”  He spasmed upright in the dark, suddenly horrified.  He hadn’t intended to to give away so much of himself – but in the private dark his secret had simply slipped out.  “Don’t tell _anyone!_   If anyone knows, they’ll pack me off as a psych casualty.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Scott said, in the dark, and Stonebridge felt fingers brush his shoulder – a promise as binding as a sworn oath.  “You don’t have to worry about going home as a psych casualty.  You’re not alone.  I’m right here.  The two of us together, we’re going to get through this.”

“I know.” 

“But you gotta promise me something.”

“Yes?”

“Promise me you’ll find yourself a shrink as soon as we get home.”

“I can’t.  The job…”

“Fuck the job.  This is your _health_ , buddy.  Flashbacks?  You’re walking wounded, just as if you had a couple holes in you.  You can’t hide away and pretend you ain’t bleeding!  Promise me.” 

He choked back a half-sob.  “I can’t.  I have to keep it together.”

“Bullshit!  You can’t fill a hole by papering over it.  You gotta open it up and see how deep it goes.  There’s nothing wrong with not being Rambo.  _No-one_ is Rambo. Rambo is bullshit.  So you promise me!”  Scott made a sharp movement in the dark, bouncing the mattress.  “Promise me!”

He couldn’t see Scott’s face, but he could hear the urgency in voice, and feel his movements. This was love, he realized.  Scott was more than just his partner.  Scott would keep him safe, Scott would fight for him, Scott would do anything for him.  They were brothers-in-arms. 

“All right,” he said, reluctantly.  “I promise.  When this job is done.  When we’ve got Hans– I mean, Knox.  I promise.” 

 

* * *

 

## TUESDAY MORNING

## UPINGTON, NORTHERN CAPE

 

Stonebridge woke up, and the first thought in his mind was that Kerry was back.  

The second thought was confusion.  Awareness of where he was and what had happened rushed back into his head.  Confusion was drowned in sorrow as reality clamped down around him, and he lay facing the drawn curtains, staring into the emptiness of his memories. 

Kerry, sleeping beside him, warm and breathy all night.  Kerry, silky skin and long cool fingers on his body. But Kerry was gone.  The warm weight at his back was not Kerry. 

He nursed his grief for a moment, and then realized it was getting the better of him.  He couldn’t afford to let himself get overcome by sorrow.  Especially not with someone else in the room.  He was not going to cry with someone else in the room.  He squashed the feeling down, swallowed the lump in his throat and blinked his eyes. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…”  he heard Scott whisper. 

He rolled his head around, craning his neck to see behind him.

Scott was lying on his back.  One arm was propped up against the headboard, cradling his head.  Nostromo lay spine-spread over his thigh, abandoned, and his phone was propped up on a fold of duvet on his chest.  His finger stroked and tapped the screen.  His eyes were intent, frowning at the screen, and the corners of his mouth were pleated down. 

“What’s so annoying?” Stonebridge asked.  He rolled onto his back, and put his own arms behind his head.  He was aware of the swell of his own bicep.  He hoped Scott noticed it too.   

Scott didn’t seem to notice.  He flicked his eyebrows at him, and let the phone drop face-down onto his chest, hiding his screen.  “Morning, buddy.  You ready for the breakfast of champions?”

Scott had put his phone down on its face deliberately, so he couldn’t read it.  “What’s wrong?”  he asked, jerking his jaw at the phone. 

Scott leaned his head back to examine the ceiling.  He rolled his mouth around, thinking.  “I got an email from Christy Bryant, saying call me.” 

“Christy Bryant,” Stonebridge repeated.  He frowned.  His rival for Scott’s affections was pestering him?  Scott had got his leg over her in Niger, he was sure of it, but Scott was his now.  He felt his gut plunge with a sick swoop of jealousy.  “What does _she_ want?” 

“I know _exactly_ what she wants,” Scott said, to the ceiling.  “She wants me to call her so she can schmooze me into going back to the States with her.”

“Are you going to?”  He pushed himself up on the pillow, his head against the headboard.  The bed was narrow, just wide enough for both of their big bodies, but narrow was good.  In a king-sized bed, he wouldn’t have been quite so close to Scott’s body. 

“No!  Hell no.”  Scott picked up his phone, turned it over, and jabbed at the screen with his thumb.  “There.  Delete.  Block sender.  Gone.” 

He sat up on the bed, threw the bedclothes aside, and rolled up onto his feet. 

The sick feeling of jealousy died down as he watched Scott.  Scott was _his_.  He wasn’t going to run back to Christy Bryant; not after what they’d done yesterday.  They’d cemented something between them, something rock solid, and real.  He loved Scott, and Scott loved him, and Christy Bryant couldn’t shift that with TNT. 

“I don’t like this shit,” Scott grumbled to himself.  He was gathering his clothes.

“What shit?”

“All this.  Looks like all the chickens are coming home to roost at once.  Curtis, Andy, Chrissie – all in South Africa at the same time.  I don’t like coincidences.  Maybe it means something.”

“Please don’t tell me you believe in omens.”

“Hey, if the universe is trying to tell you something, you gotta listen.”

He watched Scott move across the room, short economical movements.  “If the universe is trying to tell you something, you need to sit down and wait for the LSD to wear off.”

“Yeah.”  Scott bent over to do up his boots.   “I got a call from Zero, while you were sleeping.  Zero’s on their way here.”

“Here?”  He sat up. 

“ETA three hours.” 

“Why didn’t you wake me?” 

“Oh, yeah, like I was going to say, _Hey_ , let me wake Bravo Two, he’s sleeping next to me …”  Scott threw on his shirt, thrusting his arms into his sleeves.  He began buttoning up the shirt.  “’Sides, you need your beauty sleep more than I do.  You haven’t been sleeping right.”

He didn’t bite that bait.  “Where are they setting up the Crib?”

“Little hole-in-the-wall called Naamloseput.”  Scott picked up his holster, took out his Glock, and began checking the weapon with brisk fingers.  “We gotta get another car, and meet them there.”

“Arnisimov?”

“No sign of the bastards.”  Scott grinned.  “Come on, shake a leg!  You gotta get up, you gotta get up, you gotta get up, this _moooor_ ning!” 

He was hungry, he realized.  The idea of coffee and cornflakes sounded really good.  And so did the idea of getting up and having a pee.  Or rather, a pee _and/or_ something better…

“I’m not getting up,” he said, lying back on the bed and folding his arms behind his head.  “I’m on strike.”

“You’re… _what?_ ”  Scott stared at him, his attention drawn from the mechanism of the Glock. 

“I’m not getting up till I’ve had a good morning kiss.”  He pressed his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, grinning, watching Scott’s reaction.  “Eh?” he asked. 

“Fuck, don’t tell me you’re one of _those_ …” Scott groaned. 

“ _You_ started it,” Stonebridge said. 

“ _Knew_ this was going to be a bad idea.”

“Come here, you toss.  Give us a kiss.” 

Scott put down the Glock, and moved over.  He sat down on the edge of the bed, next to Stonebridge.  He set one hand in the centre of Stonebridge’s chest, and then slowly leaned down.  Stonebridge lay with his hands behind his head, but he could not help turning his face up to meet Scott’s.  Scott’s lips touched his, warm and soft – then went away again. 

“Hey!” he complained, freeing one hand and darting an arm up to catch Scott around the shoulder before he could leave.  “That’s not a kiss.” 

“That’s a kiss,” Scott insisted. 

“Another kiss.”

“Fuck me,” Scott sighed.  His eyes glinted with humour.  “Demanding Englishmen.  No wonder the Founding Fathers wanted to get rid of you.”  Then he leaned in for another kiss, and Stonebridge could no longer see his expression. 

This kiss was longer, and deeper.  He wrapped his hand around Scott’s neck, raising his head off the pillow.  He felt Scott lean down across him, his other hand coming up to support his weight on the mattress.  Strong lips, prickly beard, and the taste of cigarettes. Stonebridge wrapped his arms around Scott’s neck, locking him close.  Scott was coming down, closer and closer, shifting more of his weight onto the mattress.  His kisses were becoming more urgent. 

He felt the moment Scott decided to give himself over to the kiss, decided to post-pone breakfast and go all in.  He felt it in a sudden increase in Scott’s pressure against him, an acceleration in the brush of his lips and his breathing.  Scott broke the kiss, but only long enough to shift from sitting on the bed to lying along the edge. 

They kissed, gently.  Forget breakfast. Stonebridge was hard with arousal.  Forget breakfast, he wanted a good-morning fuck first.  His arms were wrapped around Scott, and Scott’s weight was all down Stonebridge’s body.  He was in the prime position for…

Stonebridge rolled, hard, twisting the way he’d been trained, and suddenly Scott was on the bottom, on his back.  Scott thumped onto the bed with a squawk of, “Arwf!”  

Stonebridge followed over in the same roll.  He was on top of Scott before he could move,  arms pinning him down. But Scott had moved, too – just as trained, just as fast.  His body bucked, his arms shooting up.  Stonebridge found himself being held up at arms length – powerful arms. 

“Hah!” Stonebridge huffed, looking down at Scott.  “Gotcha!” 

“Oh, yeah?”  Scott’s brows puckered up, inquisitively, and the corners of his mouth lifted.  The duvet beneath his head framed his face.  One knee was raised against Stonebridge's thigh, ready to deliver a very painful strike.  

“All right.  You’ve got me too,” Stonebridge agreed.

“That’s more like it.” 

Stonebridge lowered himself for an apologetic kiss, nibbling at Scott’s lower lip until his lips softened.  His mouth opened to Stonebridge, moving in response to Stonebridge’s.  He seemed eager to be led into the flows of the kiss.  Stonebridge felt arms around his shoulders, fingers kneading at the back of his neck, drawing him closer. 

He was lying on Scott.  He was in Scott’s mouth, in his arms, between his legs.  His weight was crushing him down on the mattress, dominating his frame.  Scott was his, giving himself over to Stonebridge; his to rule, his to fuck.  Scott was all his, and he would fuck what was his.

“I want you,” he said.  “I want to fuck you.” 

His arousal was so hard, it was all he could do not to thrust against the warmth under him.  He wanted to thrust, wanted to hump himself into Scott where he lay.  But he would take the time to undress Scott, peel him naked before he took him.  It would be all the more perfect for the time he took. 

“Wait, _what?_ ”  Scott’s eyes went wide. 

“I want to fuck you,” he said, into the wide eyes.  “I want to pin you down and fuck you, right here.” 

“Wait a second.” 

“Have you got a condom?”  he rasped.  Anal sex demanded cleanliness; and a bit of gentleness.  He could own Scott, as thoroughly, as completely as he’d owned Kerry, but he’d have to take a bit of care about it, or he’d do serious damage.  Kerry had liked it, but even she needed a bit of … opening up. 

Now he was going to open up a man, the same way.  He was giddy with arousal, shaking with the need to stop himself simply ripping Scott’s clothes off and thrusting in.  Scott needed to be opened up, gently coaxed into submitting. He pressed himself down again, applied his kisses to the side of Scott’s neck.  He took one hand off Scott’s wrist, and ran it down to the belt of his trousers. 

“You’re mine, and I want you,” he purred into Scott’s neck, tugging Scott’s belt-loop free with one hand.  “You’re going to like this.”  

“Wait.” 

He felt Scott’s hand come up and press against his shoulder, and the word _wait_ finally penetrated the fog of his arousal. 

 _Wait_ …

He couldn’t believe _wait_ was real.  He had to check, reassure himself that Scott was still enjoying this, check to see his own lust echoed on Scott’s face.  He pulled his head back from Scott’s throat, drew away so that he could see Scott’s expression.  

 _Reluctant_ was written there, in Scott’s face and the stiffness of his neck. 

 _Reluctant_  – not teasing timidity, not playfulness – that was _Reluctant_.  He almost hadn’t noticed it, in the heat of his desire, but now that he had seen it, it was intolerably ugly.  Scott’s body had gone rigid under his. 

He pulled himself back onto his elbow; horrified; shocked; rejected.  “Don’t you want this?”

Scott’s eyes fluttered left and right, as if he was looking for a way out.  “Well... Let’s just … wait a second…” 

 “Shit,” Stonebridge said.  His arousal wilted.  He sat up, horrified, and shocked cold.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

He climbed backwards off Scott’s body, and got off the bed.   

Scott sat up, his face aghast.  “Don’t go away,” he said. 

“I’m sorry.  I know I play a bit rough.  It won’t happen again.”  He turned and moved away, his eyes unseeing.  “I’ll go back to my…”

“Come back here!”  Scott was moving, feet thumping the floor behind him.  “Mikey, we gotta talk about this.” 

He might not notice _Reluctant,_  next time, and hurt Scott.  He couldn’t bear the thought.  He never wanted to see _Reluctant_ , ever again in a lover’s face, ever.  “Not now,” he said.  “Not if it’s not what you want.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t what I _wanted_!  Shit, dickhead, stick around and finish a conversation for once in your fucking life!”

The frustration in Scott’s voice was all the spur he needed to speed him on his way.  It made it easier to withdraw, knowing that Scott was beginning to get emotional.  He did not have the strength for an emotional conversation, after _Reluctant._   

“I’m going back to my room,” he said coldly, fixing his face into a mask.  He stepped forward crisply, pacing out of Scott’s grasp.  “Meet you in twenty for breakfast.” 

 

* * *

 

The rental car was another SUV, a Mitshubishi Pajero with dark metallic grey sides and a bright silver bull-bar on the end of the hood.  Scott liked it as soon as he slipped the car into first gear, and felt the powerful tug of the car’s biting point against his clutch pedal. 

“Oh, yeah,” he drawled to the car, stroking his palms lovingly over the sweet curve of the steering wheel.  “You and me’re gonna go places, baby.”

Michael Stonebridge put the documents for the rental in the glove compartment and banged the door shut.  The car beeped until he pulled his seatbelt across and clicked it into its socket. 

“Right-o,” Scott said.  He steered the car out of the rental parking lot.  “Lead on, MacDuff…”

He didn’t get a reply from Stonewall. 

He drove in silence.  He glanced occasionally at his passenger, but Stonehenge had sunk back into icy silence.  There was a brooding heaviness to his eyes and a rigidity to his jaw that Scott knew.  Any friendly openings he made would be shut down.  Well, at least steaming anger was better than the glomp-swamps.  He could handle Stonehenge’s anger, no problemo; he just had to wait.  Michael the Monolith would get around to talking in his own time. 

Naamloseput was an hour out of Upington, off the main highway, and along a back road.  The road was straight, the way desert roads were, sticking out toward the horizon like a lance of tar.  Badly maintained tar, for that matter.  Every now and again, a signpost held up the name of a farm, and a spur led off into the ochre distance on the seemingly hopeless task of finding human beings out there.   Cicadas shrieked from their hiding places aside the road, dopplering in and out of earshot. 

A truck grew ahead of him in the distance and he caught up with it slowly.  It was a livestock truck, open-trucked, and for a moment he couldn’t figure what the hell was on it. 

Brooms? 

No; ostriches. 

Scott slowed the car down to the speed of the truck and snuggled the Pajero in behind it for a good look. 

It was a truck-load of ostriches, their long necks sticking up out of the top of the truck and swivelling this way and that, looking around at the road with every sign of avian curiosity, as if they didn’t want to miss a thing.  They looked like excited tourists  trying to look in too many directions at once.  No, hell: they looked like some of Hans Blix’s inspectors, trying to look at as much stuff as they could while Saddam’s boys hustled them through Tuwaitha as fast as they could go. 

He cast a look at Stonehenge. 

He was sitting upright, his eyes narrowed, but there was a tightness around the corners of his mouth that said he was trying real hard not to smile. 

The truck driver must have seen him coming up, because all of a sudden the truck  swung out to the yellow line along the road’s shoulder.  It was riding on the shoulder of the road, one side well over, keeping speed but leaving them plenty of room to pass.  Scott swung out, geared down and pressed the Pajero for a burst of speed, and the big engine dug deep and roared past the truck.  The ostrich press contingent passed over his line of sight, but he saw Michael crane his neck to the window and peer up as they passed the side of the truck. 

Then they were past it. 

It was the custom here to flash one’s hazard-lights as a _thank-you_ to the driver behind for letting them pass.  Scott reached across and pressed the hazard button – one-two – and then cancelled it.  He watched in his rear-view mirror as the truck fell away into the distance. 

He glanced at Michael, to see that Mikey had turned down the sunvisor.  He was watching the truck recede in the little make-up mirror stuck in the visor’s inside.  The truck fell away behind them, its avian press contingent lost in the distance. 

“Now _that_ ,” Scott said, “is the weirdest thing I’ve seen in a _long_ time.”

It wasn’t much of a statement, but it was enough.  Something broke between them.   Mikey laughed, his perfect smile showing his perfect teeth. 

Fuck, but the guy was fucking beautiful when he smiled. 

It dawned on him that Mikey did know exactly how he looked.  That close-shaven buzz-cut look might be just convenience – but the tight jeans, and the spray-on T-shirts?  Either he picked them himself, knowing how good he looked, or Kerry dressed him up like her own personal Ken doll. 

“I’ve never seen anyone take ostriches for a ride before,” Michael agreed.  He shook his head, still smiling,  and folded the sunvisor back against the ceiling. 

“Yeah, I guess they must have to move ‘em somehow,” Scott said.  “Can’t see ostriches taking real kindly to trail drives.  Goodnight and Loving taking a flock of ostriches up the Chisholm Trail?  Nuh-uh.” 

“Goodnight and Loving?” 

“Cowboys.” 

“You had _cowboys_ called Goodnight and Loving?”  Michael said, and then his eyes narrowed with suspicion.  “You’re having me on.” 

“Nuh-uh.” Scott shook his head.  “Cowboys.” 

Michael didn’t answer.  He lowered the sunvisor and had another look in the mirror, but by now the truck was far behind them.  “Wonder where they’re going?”

Scott narrowed his eyes.  “To the feather duster factory?”  he guessed.

Michael sighed, and sat back in the seat.  His thick fingers tapped on his knee.  “What happened back there, Scott?” he asked, in a new tone of voice. 

Scott ganced at Michael’s expression, and realized that he wasn’t talking about ostriches.  The square face was absolutely serious. 

He blew out his lips.  “You took me by surprise, that’s all.  That was an Amber Light, buddy.  Not a Red Light.”

 “Did I hurt you?”  Michael asked, and then his voice quickened urgently.  “Cause, honestly, mate, I don’t want to hurt you; if I hurt you back there, pushed you, put you off…”

“It’s not you!” Scott said, waving down Michael’s concern with one hand off the wheel.  “You’re golden!  It’s me.  I’m just not there yet.” 

“I never had you pegged as a guy who liked to take things slow,” Michael said. 

“I’m not!”  He took a look at Mikey's face.  “Not usually.  I’ve just never done that before.”  That was the truth, out at last. 

“You’re having me on.”

“No.  For real.”

“I thought you and Curtis had sex.”

“Sure we did,” Scott said. 

“So you were on top?” Michael Learns To Interrogate; digging away at the problem with his usual determination.  “You’ve never been on the bottom before?”

“Never been on top, or on the bottom.” 

“Wait – _what?”_   He saw Michael out of the corner of his eye sit upright with a jerk of surprise.  “Jesus.  You’re a virgin!”

“I’m not a fucking virgin!  _Fuck_ you!” Scott lifted his hand off the wheel and jabbed his index finger in the air to emphasise the word.  “I’ve had lots of sex!  I’ve just never actually done…” he was going to have to say the word, there was no getting away from it, “anal.” 

“Anal sex _is_ sex, Scott!” Michael said.  “ _Damien Scott_ is a virgin.”

Oh, God.  Scott realized, with a sinking heart:  Stonewall was one of those guys who was all hung up on popping cherries.   “There’s more to sex than just intercourse.  Anal’s just a _kind_ of sex I haven’t tried yet.”

“Sex is sex.  That’s why when we say ‘have sex,’ what we mean is having intercourse.  Face it.  You’ve never had sex with a man.  You’re a virgin.  No wonder you wanted to take it slow.” 

The best defense was an offense.  “Yeah,” Scott went on the offensive.  “Like there’s an offside rule?  Beyond that point is gay sex, everything on _this_ side is just – what? – messing around?  No.  There’s more to sex than penetration.”

“No, I’m pretty sure penetration is sex,” Michael objected.  “Anything else is just fooling about.”

 “Who are you, Bill Clinton?” Scott scoffed.  “Only penetration is sex, so you can say you never had sex with a man with a clear conscience? Is that what we’ve been doing?  Plausible and deniable?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Listen, dickhead.  Anything you do that’s sexy with a man is man-on-man sex. 

What we did in the shower was sex.  What we did in the Crib was sex!  What you wanted to do is…”  His tirade ran out of words, and he sucked in a deep breath, and re-registered his voice to a lower, calmer pitch.  “ _That’s_ just breaking new ground, for me.”

There was a silence in the car.  Stonehenge’s gaze had gone away, and his neck was tucked down in that turning-an-idea-around expression. 

“Sex is a journey, buddy, not a destination.”   Scott had read that somewhere, and it seemed to suit his situation, so he rolled with it.  “Sex is not an act, it’s a state of being.  Everything’s fluid.  Anything you do in sexy-time _is_ sexy-time.”

After a few minutes, the silence got on Scott’s nerves.

“You’re still good?” he asked. “I still want to do this.” 

“I _like_ the idea of breaking new ground with you,” Mikey said.  His voice was level, but there was a note in it that hinted that the interest that had disappeared in the bedroom was already back.  He _was_ hung up on virginity, Scott realized.   “You’ll tell me when you’re ready?” Mikey asked. 

“Buddy, when the light turns green, you’ll be the first to know.”

Naamloseput was the name of a tiny collection of houses in a corner of the road.  It wasn’t even as much as a one-horse town. 

It must have started as little more than an accretion of buildings in this corner of the road, and inhabited by accident over the last hundred years, and eventually named on a map more by habit than by any acknowledgement that a town should have grown here. 

The road widened out so far that Scott wasn’t certain if it was still a road, or someone’s parade ground.  On one side was a tiny church, waiting for Sunday; over on the far side was a gas station and co-op-cum-feed store with a lean-to porch.  The buildings stood apart, at a disinterested distance, as if each didn’t care for the others’ company.   The only cars in sight were clustered around the trunk of a lone tree, trying to share the meagre shade.  Nothing moved. 

The Pajero rolled in, and then before they even had a sense of arrival they found themselves rolling out again, as if the place was so loosely defined that visitors simply slid out of it like soap in the bottom of the bath.     

“Naamloseput.”  Scott gloomed. 

“Naamloseput _Farm,_ ” Michael corrected him.  “Keep going.”

“Okay,” Scott agreed.  “Lead on, Mac…”

“Scott, if you say that _one_ more time…!”

“All right, all right!”  Scott grinned, and laughed to himself.  It was good to have his buddy back. 

He took the Pajero out again, and onto a side road, rougher and lumpier than the main highway.  This road slipped between wire fences, until a smudge of gravel led off to the right.  A single signboard on a pole read Naamloseput Plaas. 

“Guess this is it,” Scott said, taking the car off onto the side road. 

The tyres started to grumble on the loose gravel, and he slowed to a crawl to preserve his suspension.  The road hadn’t been travelled regularly for years.  Weeds were starting to fight their way free of the gravel, and singing to the sun in the voice of the cicadas.  After a few minutes of driving through the low brush, the road came to a wire fence, with a gate in it. 

The gate was closed.  Michael got out without a word, clunking the door shut behind him.  Scott could see the wariness in his stance as he walked to the gate, see the watchful eyes cast around them, but they were alone.  The gate had a thick steel chain looped around its post, but the chain wasn’t padlocked, and Scott watched Mikey in the sunshine untangle the chain from the post, and then hoik the gate up in his other hand, and walk in an arc across the road with it. 

He put the car into first, and grated through the gap, and then pulled up to let Michael walk the sagging gate back across the road and re-tangle the chain. 

Michael got back into the car. 

“House is just ahead,” Scott said, driving on. 

The scrub around them thickened very slightly, until they reached a copse of brown trees with a house set in the centre of them.   Scott pulled the Pajero up in the yard in front of the house, and turned off the engine.  “We’re here,” he said. 

They both got out.  By habit and training, they examined their surroundings from each side of the car.

The house was built of roughly-dressed stone, with a low porch in front, and a tin roof that sloped steeply down like a frown.  The porch stood behind the wreckage of a garden, grey and dead.  Behind the house was a line of sketchy trees, arched around the house like the sheltering wings of a stage backdrop. 

Off to the right of the house was a skeletal wind-pump, and under it a low wall of earth – a rough reservoir.  The pump’s blades were missing, the struts a tangled knot like rusted string.  Without even needing to go look, Scott guessed that the reservoir was empty.  All around them, the landscape stretched away to the horizon, huge and grey-brown.

The heat of the day beat down from the sun, and radiated up from the dead copper soil of the yard.  Insects sang to the sun all around them, a constant metallic ringing sound, but other than that there was no sound.  Nothing moved, no sign that anyone else was within a thousand miles. 

It was not as hot as the doc’s house in Algeria, but the doc’s house at least had a guy living in it, even if he was a treacherous asshole.  No-one had lived in _this_ house for years. 

A cold prickle of unease tingled up the backs of Scott’s arms.  “I don’t like it,” he said. 

“Please don’t tell me it’s too quiet.”  Michael put his sunglasses on.  “Quiet is good, Scott.  We can park behind the house, throw some camo-netting over, and nobody will know we’re here.”

“Yeah.”  Scott put his own sunglasses on, and out of habit took his gun out.  “On your six,” he said to Michael. 

Michael moved off.  He climbed the steps to the porch, and moved to the front door.  Scott followed him up into the shade of the porch.  The door was unlocked and Mikey opened it, and went in.  Scott took a moment to check that the yard was still all clear, and then followed him in. 

The inside was one big room, front to back, with no ceiling.  Scott could see where the interior walls had been, but they were gone, and there was no furniture.  The floor was stone, and scuffed with a layer of fine sand that grated under his soles. 

Michael crossed to the back wall and looked through the window.  “Perfect,” he said.  “Big enough for the Crib, easy.” 

“Sinclair hasn’t lost his touch.”  Scott crossed over, and had a look out of the window.  The trees at the back of the house were thin, almost transparent.  But the back of the house had enough open space to fit the van and the Pajero, out of sight.  Nobody would see them from the road, nobody would see them from the air.  “Sinclair, yeah.” 

“I’ve never understood why you and he get along so well.”

“Don’t you?” Scott asked.  He thought about it for a moment.  He respected Sinclair – and not just because he’d drawn a line in the sand and then popped Scott on the nose when he’d stepped over it.  “He’s got great kung fu.”

“Kung fu?”  Michael asked, and Scott could see the amused disbelief in his face.  “Him?”  

“Think about Mog for a sec.  He rang up AMISOM’s  peacekeepers and talked them into going out in the middle of the night loaded for bear into the worst sector in the whole of Mog.”

“They only came because he offered them Waabri’s head on a spike,” Michael pointed out. 

“Yeah.  Exactly.  He sold it so well, they _thanked_ him for it.  D’ye think Grant would have been able to do that?  D’ye think _you’d_ be able to do that?  Sinclair makes it look easy.  _He’s_ not just a REMF.  He’s a REMF with _mad skills_.” 

“I see.” 

“No, you don’t.” Scott pointed in his direction.  “Understand, the young Stonewalker does not.”

“Oh, God, not Star Wars too.”

Scott laughed to himself, and turned to look out through the window again. 

He jumped in surprise at the touch of a hand on his back.  Mikey’s palm, warm and solid, pressing against his spine just above his webbing belt.  The hand ran carefully up his spine to the nape of his neck.

He felt the muscles of his stomach clench with anticipation.  _Guess Luke Stonewalker’s got the Force back…_

He turned to meet Mikey, and then they were standing eye-to-eye, almost in each others arms, _definitely_ in each other’s intimate zones. 

Mikey’s eyes were looking closely at him, as if measuring him, then the firm lips quirked in a gentle smile.  “Hey, there,” Mikey said in a low voice, as if finding Scott so close was a pleasant surprise.  There was a deep throaty note of sex under the timbre of his voice.

_Yup, the mojo’s back all right…_

They were the same height, and standing this close he was close enough to breathe Michael’s breath, close enough to smell his aftershave.  He could see the fine lines of Mikey’s face, see the golden fluff of his eyelashes around the crystal of his eyes, the crispness of freshly shaved skin.  The buzzcut brought out the heavy brooding power of his face.  Scott raised his hand, pressed it against Mikey’s side.  His side was as hard as the side of an APC, but warm, and breathing. 

“Yeah, you.  What do you want?” Scott asked, with mock aggression, although he already knew exactly what Michael wanted.

He felt Michael move, and a moment later felt the soft touch of a finger against his cheek. 

It tickled, and he couldn’t help smiling at it.  The finger roamed lightly over his jawline, dragging a bit over his beard, and then looped around the point of his chin and came to rest just on his lower lip.  Mikey’s gaze had gone out of focus – or rather, his gaze had gone very _into_ focus.  Hyperfocus, on his own fingertip, on Scott’s lip.

 _Damn_ , that was flattering.  He had that effect on Michael Stonebridge, the big bad-ass mofo from the SAS.  There was a pleasure in that, all on its own, completely outside the physicality of touch.  He felt the affection rise in him. 

Scott held Michael’s gaze.  He dropped his head slightly, pursed his lips, and kissed the point of that finger, very gently.  Something in Michael’s eyes flared, telescoping his desire the moment before he leaned in for a kiss.

Scott closed his eyes, closed his mind to everything, and let his lips do what they knew best. 

Not a challenge, this kiss.  Just a kiss.  Gentler than the kiss he’d shared with Rebekkah Levi.  Sweeter than the rancid fuck he’d had with Christy Bryant in Niamey.  Affection as much as instinct steered him into Michael’s mouth. 

Mikey’s face was smooth, his muscles like marble.  He had a beautiful mouth, a gladiator’s nose, and silky skin.  He wasn’t kissing a man.  He was kissing a Greek statue, a god with perfectly-turned marble limbs.  He was kissing Apollo, or Hercules.  No – he was kissing Mars, the Roman god of war, the personification of violence and glory, beautiful and bloodthirsty. 

He had begun with affection, but instinct was taking hold.  His body was responding of its own accord, his blood quickening, reflex overriding his will.  His hands lifted themselves and pressed against the sides of Michael’s face, steadying the kiss. 

Hands pressed against his cheeks, his neck, his shoulders.  Michael was getting taken up by his desire.  He could hear Michael’s breath hissing in his nostrils.  He felt a hand against his stomach, reaching down for his belt. 

Sound and action happened together.  Something _was_ , that fucking shouldn’t be.  He startled backwards as he noticed the sound in the air. 

“Shit!”  He yanked himself out of Michael’s arms.  That gurgling rumble was a diesel engine, and it was real close. 

Michael was left hanging, and he squawked with surprise and made a fumbling grab for the lost kiss.  “Hey!”  His eyes clouded over with panic.  “I’m sorry, did I…?” 

He didn’t have time for Michael and his hangups.  “Car!” he barked.  “We’ve got company.”  He crossed the room to the window and took up position alongside the window frame. 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Scott is an arsehole in this chapter.

## TUESDAY MORNING

## NAAMLOSEPUT, NORTHERN CAPE

 

Stonebridge took up position opposite Scott, hugging the wall.  He peered through the window, keeping his distance from the pane so that his face didn’t show up like a murky ghost. 

A car was pulling into the yard.  It was a pick-up truck; just one.  It pulled up alongside their Pajero, and the engine cut out. 

“Guess that’s the welcoming committee,” Scott said. 

Stonebridge heard a car door bang closed.  The window was too murky to make out details, but he saw a man’s figure walk around the pick-up’s nose. 

“Hellooo!” he heard a deep voice outside call.  A pair of dark blurs ran at knee height after the man.  Dogs; and big ones too. 

“Follow my lead, buddy,” Scott said, thrusting his gun into the back of his jeans, and stepped away from the window.  He opened the door and swaggered out onto the porch. 

“Yo,” Scott said.  “Morning.”

“Hello, hello, hello.  Mister Byers?” 

“Naah,”  Scott said.  “I’m Langley.  _He’s_ Byers.” 

That had to be Stonebridge’s cue.  He moved out of the door, and walked up behind  Scott.  “Hello there,” he said. 

Scott was leaning one hand on the underside of the eaves, lolling against it.  His other hand was propped oh-so casually on his hip, very close to the Glock.   Stonebridge walked up alongside him and stood far enough away that they wouldn’t foul each other’s shots.  He arranged his face into a smile.  “Good morning,” he said to the stranger.

The dogs, a pair of limber red hounds, ran up and examined his jeans with interest, but he knew how to handle strange dogs.  He ignored them both, and kept his gaze on their owner, who was still moving forward. 

The man walking up was a broad-bellied white man – or at least, he _would_ have been a white man, if he wasn’t tanned to the point that his skin looked like a well-roasted leg of lamb.  He wore a broad brimmed hat, and a two-toned shirt with dark scallops of sweat under his armpits. 

If _he_ was working for Knox, Knox had to be hiring his guns by kilogram, not calibre.  Mercenaries did _not_ get that heavy; not if they wanted to stay employed. 

“I’m Piet.  I talked to your friend Oliver last night.”  The man climbed up onto the porch, getting out of the sun out of sheer habit. 

“Yeah,” Scott agreed. 

“How is the place?”  Piet asked.  He took off his hat and rubbed his thick fingers over his hair. 

“It’s perfect!” Scott said with sunny enthusiasm.  “Just the right lighting, just the right size, no rubberneckers.  It’s just what the script needs.  Tell you, the Director’s going to fucking _love_ it.” 

Shit, Scott was doing it again… making up a cover story on the spot.  Stonebridge suddenly saw an elaborate back-story opening up under him like a falling trapdoor – a story he was going to have to help carry. 

“Nobody lives here?” Stonebridge asked. 

“No water,” Piet explained.

“What about the pump?”  Stonebridge asked. 

“The well dried up,” Piet explained.  “So my Pa moved the house to the other side.  But it’s okay for you, right?”

The other side of _what_ , Stonebridge wondered.  The country?  The province?  This farm?  He couldn’t see another building anywhere.  How big were the properties around here anyway?

“Oh, yeah, no problem,” Scott said.  He leaned casually against the pole of the porch, his hand still hanging close to the butt of the Glock.   “We just need a couple of short takes for Episode Three,  and maybe a couple of publicity stills, and then we’ll be outta your hair.  But you’ll get paid by the day.”

“Oliver said, no credits.  Okay?  No credits, nobody knows. Cos I don’t want to get involved with filming permits and all that kak, okay?” 

“No name, no credits,” Scott said.  One of the dogs had come up to Scott.  Scott reached out the back of his hand for a sniff, and then fretted the dog’s flopped ears with his fingers.  “As long as you keep your guys away.  We can’t have Africans running around in Afghanistan, know what I’m saying?” 

“Ja,” Piet agreed, taking the comment without even blinking.  “Wouldn’t look right.”

“We might not end up using it anyway.  Rachel might get here and say, **_Naah_** , fuck it, lighting’s wrong.” 

“That’s show-business,” Stonebridge agreed.  “You never  know for sure if something’s going to come together until it comes together.”

“Who’s making it?” Piet glanced from Scott to Stonebridge.  “Oliver didn’t say.  The BBC?”

“Sky One,” Stonebridge said, just as Scott said, “Cinemax.” 

They spoke at the same time, their voices riding over each other, and both stopped.  They exchanged glances. 

“Cinemax _and_ Sky One,” Stonebridge said. 

“It’s a joint American-British thing,” Scott explained. 

“American _money_ ,” Stonebridge stated, raising a professorial finger.  “But British _writing_.” 

Scott flickered his eyebrows at him, and grinned.  “Ahh,” he sighed, regretfully, shaking his head, “you’ll just have to excuse my buddy.  He still thinks Monty Python is funny.”

“And _this_ is why all the writers on our show are British,” Stonebridge said to Piet.  “There’s just no helping some people.”

Piet looked from one to the other.  He seemed to grasp that the little by-play was a joke, but the reference clearly went over his head.  

“If you need anything, the house is just on the other side.”  Piet pointed out across the landscape.  “I’ll be off then.  Good to meet you.”  He held out a hand to Scott, and then to Stonebridge.  His palm was leathery, but sweaty. 

“If we need anything, we’ll give you a ring,” Stonebridge promised. 

“ _Orraaait_ ,” Piet agreed.  He swung down off the porch and gave a short two-toned whistle.  “Nala!  Impi!  Come!” 

The two dogs emerged from their explorations and trotted after him, their whip tails curled over their backs happily.  They bounded up into the back of the pick-up, grinning widely, and Piet climbed into the cab.  The engine turned over. 

Stonebridge watched the car turn around in the yard, and then pull away across the lumpy road.  It went off, trailing up a fresh cloud of dust.  “That’s that, then.” 

Scott settled his rump on the rail of the porch.  “We’ve got a while before Zero gets here,” he said.  He folded his arms comfortably over his chest, and swung one foot.  “Time to kill.” 

“ _I_ can think of something to do,” Stonebridge said, quickly. 

Scott rolled his head back, the lazy lascivious grin spreading across his face.  “Yep,” he said.  “I reckon you can.” 

“Come on, then,” Stonebridge held out one hand. 

Scott held out his hand, and Stonebridge locked his fingers around Scott’s wrist in an over-under grip, and tugged him up off the porch rail. 

He led Scott backwards into the house.  Scott swung the door back behind him, and it clunked closed on its neglect-warped lock. 

He led Scott across the room, to a wall lit gold by the late-morning sun.  The haze on the windows made the light as thick as honey, and he turned around to indulge himself in a long look at Scott. 

Scott, standing in a halo of golden light.  God, but he was beautiful.  The light twinkled on the flecks of his irises; glanced off the tendons in his neck; glinted on his grinning teeth.  Stonebridge took a moment to admire him, long enough for Scott to tilt his head and quirk his eyebrows curiously. 

Something about the line of Scott’s raised brows was more than he could resist.  His erection roared up.  He tugged Scott’s hand to draw him closer, and leaned in for a kiss. 

Scott’s mouth… he was prickly and smoky, and slowly becoming familiar.  He brushed Scott’s lips with his own, and then opened his mouth and leaned in to probe gently with his tongue. 

He felt hands come up around his shoulders, locking him into the embrace.  His hand slipped around Scott, cupped around the back of his head.  Mouth to mouth, and tongue to tongue, slip-sliding along each other. 

Scott stopped cooperating, and Stonebridge knew this to be a request for a breather.  He broke contact, and leaned back for a look. 

Scott’s free hand came up and traced the side of his jaw.  “You stick around.  I’m going to run and fetch a blanket from the car, and we can…” 

“Okay,” Stonebridge said. 

Scott broke out of Stonebridge’s arms.  He backed towards the door, one finger raised in command.  “Don’t move,” he challenged Stonebridge, grinning.   

“Aye aye, captain.”  He pretended to take up stand-easy. 

A wink and a grin, then Scott was gone and the door banged shut. 

Stonebridge waited, his erection weighting down the front of his pants.  He loosened his belt.  He wanted to giggle at the ridiculousness of his own eagerness.  His lover had gone to fetch a blanket so they could have a good satisfying bonk on the floor of a deserted farmhouse. 

He heard the sound of the Pajero’s door.  Well, if Piet came back to check on them, it would only help to reinforce their covert identities as men in show-biz.  Television… it’s _fabulous._

He was just starting to wonder if Scott was playing hard-to-get and wanted to be pursued, when the door opened.  Scott came in, with a grey serge blanket over his fore-arm.  He closed the door behind him, his eyes ranging over Stonebridge’s body. 

“Come here,” Stonebridge said.  “We’ve got a nice sunny spot here.” 

Scott came over.  He flapped out the folds of blanket and dropped it across the dusty floor, kneeling into it to spread it out.  Stonebridge knelt with him, taking a square and spreading it out, his desire shuddering inside him. 

Scott was kneeling on the blanket, and Stonebridge knelt facing him, knees dovetailed with knees.  Scott was fussing with the blanket, fussing to straighten the corner, fussing with fabric when Stonebridge was shivering with lust and couldn’t wait.  His eager hands tugged at Scott’s shoulders, and Scott gave up on the blanket and came in.  They met for another kiss, Scott’s hands taking rest on the tops of Stonebridge’s thighs.  Mouth met mouth at last, and he reached up to cup Scott’s face. 

Kissing was so much fun!  He’d forgotten how exciting simple kissing could be!  Kissing a man, especially!  Kissing this man more than anything. 

There was nothing soft in Damien Scott.  He might talk too much about _feelings_ for Stonebridge’s comfort, he might read the most girlie books imaginable – _dragons, for fucks’ sake_ – he might like his bubble-bath; but there was nothing soft about _him_.  There was nothing in Scott that was Duncan Brown. 

That meant it would have to be Stonebridge who _moisturised_ , between the two of them.  Well, he didn’t mind being just a little bit Duncan Brown, for the sake of kisses like this. 

And, to hell with what anyone thought.  He was Special Forces.  He had the training to stomp on anyone who called him anything he didn’t like.  He could afford to be a _little_ soft.

He broke the kiss, and ranged his lips along Scott’s lower lip, mouthed at his chin.  Scott rocked his head back in pleasure, and Stonebridge nibbled with his lips along the bristling line of his jaw, nipped at his exposed throat. 

He broke the kiss. 

“Listen,” he said.  His hands traced the lines of Scott’s jaw, from temples down his sideburns to his chin.  He could feel his fingers trembling with the urgency of his arousal. 

“Listening.”  Scott’s eyes were open and clear. 

“You said you weren’t comfortable with the idea of anal.” 

He felt Scott’s fingers tighten on his thighs.  They were still on their knees, the blanket only slightly padding the stone floor, and Scott’s hands were resting lightly in Stonebridge’s lap. 

“Yeah,” Scott said, slowly.  “That doesn’t mean I don’t still want to do this.  I’m just…” 

“Why don’t you do me, instead?” 

Scott’s eyes widened.  “Me, do you?” 

He’d managed to surprise Scott, hah!  “The more I think about it the more I like the idea.  I’d like to feel you inside me.”

“I’ve never done it before.”

“I trust you.”

Something in his words seemed to take Scott’s breath away, because he pulled away and looked at Stonebridge as if he’d never really taken note of him before. 

“You’ve done it with women before?”  Stonebridge asked. 

“Yeah.” 

“Then you know what to do, right?  Just like that.  Only… me.  I’ve always wondered what it feels like, and now here you are.  So if you want to do it, then let’s do it.” 

“Are you still hung up on popping cherries?”

“No,” he denied, and then changed his mind.  “Yes, a bit.  I’m also a virgin.  I want you to be my first.  And I want to be _your_ first.” 

It was embarrassing to open up and admit that.  He was a grown man, but it was embarrassing to admit his own naivete.  He’d done things with Scott he’d never done before, but he felt like he was a trembling teenager again, fumbling with Kerry’s bra-strap. 

“Okay,” Scott said.  He touched Stonebridge’s lower lip with one finger.  “First time for everything.” 

“Have you got…?” he asked, and then answered his own question, “Well, of course you’ll have condoms.  Have you got any lube?”

“I’ve got lube,” Scott said, and then sat up higher on his knees. “But not now.”

“Not now?  Why not now?”

Scott put his hands around Stonebridge’s face.  “Not here,” he insisted.  “Not lying in the dirt, with Zero arriving any minute.” 

“Hmm.” Stonebridge tilted his head. 

“I don’t want your first fuck to be in a crappy old farmhouse on the floor.” 

“I thought you didn’t think it was anything special.” 

“Yeah, but _you_ do,” Scott pointed out.  “It’s important to you.  And _you’re_ important.”

“You too.”  

“Heh,” Scott huffed.  Scott’s hands were still cupped around Stonebridge’s cheeks.  Scott tugged him closer, and brought his brow down, and pressed it against Stonebridge’s forehead.  His eyes stared closely into Stonebridge’s, as if he was trying to push a thought into him with main force.  “You have no fucking idea how special you are, you know that?” Scott said. 

“Sure I do.” 

Scott smiled at him; a rather intense flash, as if he was bursting with some emotion Stonebridge did not understand.  Lust?  Pride?  Sorrow? 

It was gone before Stonebridge could pin it down. 

Scott ran a hand down the side of his neck.  “It’s too important to rush.  So we’ll wait until we can get somewhere nice,” Scott promised, brow-to-brow.  “A nice place with privacy, and we can take our time, and your first fuck will be as special as you want it to be.” 

“All right.” 

“Besides – think about all this sand getting in your happy-chappies.  You know what lives in sand?  Sand-fleas.  You don’t want sand-fleas in your junk.  _Trust_ me.”

“You’d know, would you?”

“Oh, you have no fucking idea,” Scott grinned, with a roll of his eyes.  “So we’ll wait.  And then we’ll have a nice big soft bed, and lots of nice scented lube, and I’ll peel you open like a Christmas present… and rub oil all over your back…and…” 

Stonebridge liked the sound of that so much that he leaned in and smothered Scott’s words with his mouth. 

This kiss was more passionate, stirred by the mental image of Scott with massage oil on his hands.  His tongue sought Scott’s, tussled in the confines of his mouth with it.  The pressure was rising inside himself, growing uncomfortably tight inside his pants.  More, damn it!  He wanted more! 

There was nothing soft about kissing Scott, nothing predictable, nothing to take for granted.  Scott’s mouth burned.  And Stonebridge burned for it, burned to taste more of him.  He was going to taste all of Scott, kiss him all over, savour him bit by bit like a sexual dessert. 

He let go of Scott’s head and pulled back.  “I’ve got an idea!” he said. 

“An idea, huh?” Scott asked. 

“Oh, yes,” Stonebridge said.  He looked around.  “Not here.  _There_ ,” he gestured toward the wall, using the flat-handed point of his army training out of sheer habit. 

“What’s there?” 

“You’ll see.  Up you get,” he said, climbing to his feet and tugging Scott up by one shoulder.  “On your feet, soldier!”  He plucked the blanket up off the ground with his free hand.

“Now what?”  Scott said.  The grin was back, impish, the crows-feet of mischief running at the corners of his eyes. 

“Patience is a virtue, Sergeant Scott,” he said, walking Scott backward with a hand on his chest. 

“You still think I’ve got _virtues_?” Scott asked. 

“Stand here.”  He manoeuvred Scott around, and shoved him sharply in the centre of the chest to get him to stand against the wall.  Scott hit the wall, but his arms came out and tugged Stonebridge along with him. 

Stonebridge let the blanket drop at his feet by feel, and just savoured the fun of kissing Scott for a moment.  Then he started undoing buttons with his hands, keeping contact with his mouth.  Button, button, button, down Scott’s chest to his stomach.  Kiss, kiss, kiss at the same time. 

He broke the kiss when he had Scott’s chest open.  He stood back to have a look.  Scott’s torso, bared before him.  The spread of hair on his throat met the hair on his chest, and led down to the mystery under his belt.  Small male nipples, and he touched them both and ran his fingertips across Scott’s pecs.  “I like your nipples,” he said. 

“How ‘bout that,” Scott said, and then tugged him back in for a repeat of the kiss. 

Stonebridge reached his hand down between them for Scott’s belt.  He tugged the tongue of the belt out, and then found that he couldn’t undo the fly-button of his jeans by feel.  He broke the kiss, so as to look down and see what he was doing.  “I’ve an idea,” he said. 

“Yeah?”  Scott said, looking down at himself. 

“Oh, yes,” Stonebridge said, smiling.  He undid the button, unzipped Scott’s fly and folded the two wings of his jeans down.  He folded the elastic down and away, shoving it down over Scott’s hips, and freed Scott’s penis. 

It was hard, and lay heavily in his hand. He lifted it out and straight, and felt the soft silk skin over the steely strength of it. 

Scott jerked, suddenly.  His hands shot behind his back as if he was catching something – and then came back around his body with the Glock.  “Heh,” Scott said, grinning.   “That _would_ be going off too early…” 

“Can’t have that,” Stonebridge agreed.  He took the Glock away, and bent down to put it on the blanket, and then once he was bending he just kept going down.  Down onto his knees, and the blanket was padding enough on the stone for his kneecaps.

“ _Whoa_ ,” Scott breathed, above him, as he realized what Stonebridge’s idea was.  He felt Scott’s hands cup the back of his head, trembling slightly. 

He was closer to Scott than he’d been to any man, ever before.  They’d been tongue-to-tongue a moment ago, and now he was face-to-dick with him. 

He looked at it closely, taking it in one hand. Thick, and smooth, and dark with his erection, and it stood out of its pedestal of dark hair.  Scott had been cut, too, and the head of his dick was smooth and firm.  He touched it carefully with his thumb, and Scott’s breath hitched. 

He could smell Scott from here too – not just cigarette smoke and deodorant, but a strong musky scent all his own.  The scent of fresh sweat, trapped in that hair during the drive here.  The smell of Damien Scott.  It wasn’t unpleasant, just unusual; and he realized he hadn’t smelled Scott before, really _smelled_ him, in the shower or in their roll on the bed. 

He gently spread down the folds of denim fabric with his other hand, shoved them further down Scott’s thighs.  Scott was bare all down his front, from armpits to mid-thigh.  His shirt was spread around his chest like curtains, and his jeans bundled up around his legs, but his groin and his buttocks were bare.  Stonebridge slipped his other hand in and under, and found Scott’s testicles with his fingers.

Scott’s voice was hoarse with disbelief and lust.  “Are you really gonna…?” 

To think was to act.  He leaned in close, put out his tongue, and licked in a single sweep.  He ran his tongue along the length of his shaft from the head to the start of his hair until his nose was almost against his pubic bone. 

“ _Fu-u-uck_ ,” Scott croaked, his hands falling around Stonebridge’s neck. 

_That_ worked.  Good. 

He pressed a kiss to the head, and another, and another.  He lifted it gently, and kissed the underside, and then opened his mouth and fitted his lips around the solid head of that dick. 

Scott was in his mouth – he had a dick in his mouth! 

It wasn’t very comfortable.  His neck was at a strange angle, and his view wasn’t that interesting – a hedge of dark pubic hair and a wall of stomach.  And Scott was bigger than he’d thought, huge and heavy, filling his mouth. 

But he had a dick, _an actual dick_ , in his mouth!  Damien Scott was in his mouth!  And it was glorious.  He’d never felt so sexually alive, so desperately wanton, in his life.  He was on his knees with a dick in his mouth, and he was going to make this man come like a stallion.  Scott’s pleasure was his to give. 

He rolled his lips over his teeth and tried to settle deeper, and moved his tongue and jaw forward to make more space. 

The movement of his tongue seemed to do something exciting, because Scott suddenly made a noise, and his hands were tight around his neck. 

That was right, he remembered.  He’d received enough blowjobs to know what he liked.  He’d give Scott what he liked getting, and he’d know what Scott was feeling.  He knew just what he wanted to do with the dick that he was playing with. 

He let Scott’s head pop out of his mouth again, and looked up again. 

Scott was staring down at him with an expression of incredulity and delight that made his face almost baby-ish.  Stonebridge grinned. “Like that?”

“Oh-h-h…” Scott gasped, out of even profanities.  His fingers were still curled at the nape of Stonebridge’s neck.

“Warn me before you come, all right?”  Stonebridge asked. 

“Yeah,” Scott nodded, his head hanging heavily, as if he’d just pulled up from a long  race.

Stonebridge bent again to his new toy.  It was still hot, the head slippery with his own saliva.  He turned it up in one hand and tasted the underside with his tongue-tip, and then ran his tongue the entire length of it until his face was almost under Scott.  And then he did it again, and again, long sweeps of his tongue down Scott’s shaft.  He paused now and again to swirl his tongue against the head, taking his time, ignoring the touch of Scott’s hands and the hoarseness of his breathing. 

And then he took a firm grasp with one hand on the now damp dick, and slid his lips around it, down, as deep as he could go.  It filled his mouth from tongue to palate.

“Fuck,” said Scott. 

Swirl, bob, swirl, and he used his hand as support around Scott’s shaft.  Gently he stroked his tongue against the weight in his mouth.  It took him time to settle into a rhythm, to find a soft teasing beat that would bring Scott to his climax.

He kept his hand stroking and his tongue busy, and Scott was starting to jack his hips.  He could feel fingers over the back of his neck, roaming his skull with little spasms.  Scott, trying very hard not to just fuck his mouth. 

He would have to test that self-control!  He stretched out his tongue, trying to drop his jaw so as to fit more of Scott into the back of his mouth, and let go of his hand around Scott’s shaft.  He snaked his hand under Scott and found the weight of his testicles.  He rolled them between his fingers. 

_That_ brought a surge in Scott’s tempo!  Scott was fighting him, trying to fuck harder, faster.  He could force the pace slow, if he wanted.  He could keep Scott waiting, dandle him between dick and balls until he was ready to let Scott come.  The pace was his to give.  

But he was wanted.  He was lusted after, and he _wanted_ suddenly to be fucked, hard.  His mouth was Scott’s to fuck, and he yielded the pace.  He let Scott take a firm grip on his head, and jack himself into his mouth.  He was going to be fucked, by the hedge of pubic hair so close to his nose.  He was Scott’s fucktoy, and he was so aroused he couldn’t _not_ touch himself any more. 

With frantic fingers he ripped at his own belt and flies, leaving his head in Scott’s control, and took hold of himself.  He was hard and ready in his own grasp, as if he’d been watching porn. 

_Yank, yank, yank_ … no need to be gentle when he was so close… _yank, yank, yank_ , … quick hard pulls. 

And then Scott was collapsing on top of him.  The hands on his head were against his forehead, trying to push his head back.  “I’m coming, I’m coming…” Scott’s voice cracked. 

“Umm-fff!” Stonebridge protested. He was not going to be denied!  He wrapped his other hand around Scott’s backside, holding him where it was.  His own pleasure was rocketing up in him.  _Yank, yank, yank_ … He pitched his head, rocking on Scott, and Scott’s dick was pulsing.  “Shit…” Scott croaked.  “Coming…I’m coming!”

And then he was, and so was Stonebridge, the blood roaring in his ears and the world blanking out.  He felt himself jump over the point of no return and crash down on the other side.  His mind squeezed to the needle-point of his orgasm, chock-full with sensation, and suddenly there was too much happening, way too much happening all at once.  Scott was pulsing, pumping, throbbing, and with a sudden final pulse there was juice _everywhere._  

Stonebridge choked.  Scott’s head was lodged too deep against his palate to stop his explosion with his tongue.  Slippery juice was everywhere, going down his throat, threatening to go up his nose, and his own climax was making him gasp:  he couldn’t think, overwhelmed, and he couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t pull away with the hands locked around his head.  His options were to drink or to drown.  He swallowed. 

He’d come at the same time, pushed over the edge, and as the buzzing in his head died down he swallowed again, and found that he could breathe through his nose. 

It was over.  He’d come, and Scott had come too.  He gasped for breath, wrung out as if he’d run a race.  There were hands running over his head, stroking his hair, caressing him as if he was a racehorse. 

“Oh… oh-ho-ho, that was _good_ ,” Scott was rasping above his head.  “That was _great_.”

How had he managed to not bite Scott’s dick off?  He backed away, let Scott pop out of his mouth.  He sat back on his heels.  The warm, weak lassitude of post-fuck weighed him down, and he felt sated, and sweating, and pleased with himself.  He coughed, cleared his throat, and turned his head up inside Scott’s grasp.  He looked up the length of Scott’s arms to meet his eyes. 

“Jesus,” he said, and his voice was hoarse. 

Scott was grinning, sagging back against the wall even as he stood.  His fingers were still roaming Stonebridge’s head, affectionate and delighted.  “Fuck me, that was good!”

“I nearly bloody drowned.”

“I thought you wanted me to stay in…”

“I did!” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and grinned up at Scott’s expression.  “I _do._   Won’t go so deep next time.”

“Fuck, you’re _good!_   Where did you learn to _do_ that?  Huh?”  Hands around his throat, stroking.

“Natural talent.”  His own dick was still in his hand and he looked down at himself, and realized what he’d done. 

“Fuck!” His sexual smugness vanished.

“What?”

“I jizzed on the blanket.” 

“Oh, fuck!”

Stonebridge rocked himself back to squat on his heels, and looked down.  There was pearly slime in thick drops and trails all over the rough grey serge, just between Scott’s feet. 

Scott was moving, urgently tugging his jeans up around his hips.  The buckle of his belt clinked as he did it up again, and flapped his shirt down.  “Don’t worry.  Scott to the rescue!”  He stepped away, taking a long stride off the blanket.  “Is there any on me?”

Stonebridge looked briefly at the brown ankle boots and the cuffs of his jeans.  “No…”  He bent to the blanket.  “I’ve got a handkerchief…” he reached into his cargo pants and pulled it out.  He bent to the stain, and tried to mop up the worst of it and fold it away. 

“I’ll get water,” Scott announced.  He disappeared.  Stonebridge got up and pulled up his trousers.  He buckled his belt. 

Scott was back with the bottle of water in a moment, having fetched the water far more quickly than he’d fetched the blanket in the first place.  He unscrewed the lid.  “Give me that,” he said, reaching out for the blanket. 

“I should do it, it’s my jizz,” Stonebridge said. 

“Yeah, but it was my BJ,” Scott said, and put an end to any dispute by hauling the blanket up in his arms and heading off toward the door.  “I’ll take it outside where it’ll dry up fast.” 

“You can’t hang it up anywhere, Zero will see it,” Stonebridge said. 

“I’ll wash it out and stick it in the trunk.  You take your hankie and clean up the floor.”

 

* * *

 

Hiding their relationship from the rest of the team was going to take a bit of doing, Scott thought.

Then again, Mikey had done it before.  He’d been playing hide-the-sausage with Kate for months under everyone’s noses, and no-one in Twenty had cottoned on in all that time.  _Scott_ had noticed, but he’d had an outsider’s perspective, and Jerry Springer’s interest in other people’s sex lives, and he’d bet his last dollar no-one else knew. 

And at least Mikey wasn’t a guy who was big on PDAs.  Stiff upper lip and all; he probably shook Kerry’s hand and said _how do you do?_ when he woke up next to her in the morning. 

It was practicable, he thought. 

After he’d stuffed the damp blanket in the back of the Pajero and cleaned himself up, he went off in search of Michael.

He found him sitting side-saddle on the stone balustrade around the porch, staring off across the weed-encrusted yard.  His hand were propped up on his raised thigh, his face turned out, and the slope of his shoulders and back was solid, thoughtful, settled. 

At the sight of him, the affection lifted like a sweet song in Scott’s heart.

“Yo, Mikey,” he said. 

He walked up behind him and went over to the balustrade opposite him, to a patch of shade granted by the remains of the porch roof.  He sat down on the balustrade, lowering himself, and matching Mikey’s posture very deliberately.  Hands on his thigh, turn his shoulders out.  He hooked one ankle over the other knee.

He took his cigarette packet out, and struck his lighter on one. He took a deep draw, and let the cigarette dangle between two fingers. 

“Zero called,” Michael said, watching him.  “ETA in ten.”

Scott raised his eyebrows.  “We finished up just in time.” 

“Yes, I suppose we did.”

“When we’re finished with the job, we’ll find a nice quiet place, just the two of us,” Scott promised, pointing the cigarette-fingers at him.  “And we’ll do it properly.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” 

“What did you do with the hankie full of jizz?” 

“Buried it.”

“Heh,” Scott huffed a laugh.  “Like a dog with a bone.” 

“And we _all_ know how much you want a dog.” 

“Yeah, so you’ve got me coming _and_ going,” Scott grinned, and took another draw on his cigarette. 

Mikey’s face had gone back to the lumpen solidity of deep thought.  His prow of a nose aimed out at the horizon like the nose of a bomber aircraft, and his jaw was clenched.

“You okay?” Scott asked. 

“I’m fine,” Michael said, automatically. 

Scott didn’t bother contradicting him. 

But he didn’t have to.  After a few minutes of watching the landscape beyond the wind pump, the rocks of Stonehenge spoke.  “I miss her so much.” 

Speech!  At last.  Post-fuck pillow-talk, Limey-style. 

“Yeah,” Scott agreed. 

“Even now.  Here.”  The jaw jerked up, indicating the landscape around them.  “She was never _here_ , but I can feel her not _there_.  Always before, I knew she was at home, waiting for me.  She _was_ home.  She was the woman I do all this shite for.  Without her – I don’t have a _why_ anymore.”

“Yeah,” Scott said.  An inane comment, but he might just as well have said nothing: Stonebridge wasn’t really listening.  His eyes were focused on something well beyond the horizon.

“She was the woman, of all women.  We met when we were seventeen.  Seventeen, Scott.   We were just a couple of kids.  But we met, and we fell in love, and that was that.  We were the loves of each other’s …  Oh _God._ ”  Mikey’s voice went high on the last word, and Scott saw his face crumple up with realization.  And then he was leaping up off the balustrade. 

A second later Stonebridge was hugging the pole in both fists, his forehead pressed to the wood as if he was praying, his broad back to Scott. 

“Oh God,” he said to the pole, his voice low.  “You promise to stay together for the rest of your lives but I never thought it would _really_ be …the rest…of…”   He ran out of breath.  “Not _hers._   Mine, not _hers_.”  

Scott didn’t think he’d ever seen a man _not cry_ with such burning self-control.  The muscles of his neck were rigid as wires.  His back rose, and then fell; deep breaths measured by a rigid self-control that almost shook. 

Scott stood up.  He wanted to touch his back and warm away the not-tears, but he held himself back.  Touch would bring the barriers of Mikey’s self-control back up again. 

“She loved you, man,” he said.  “She knew about the death-do-us-part bit.  You’re the guy she _wanted_ to be the love of her life.” 

Michael swallowed heavily.  His hands slid down the pole, and his head lifted, as if he was looking at it for the first time.  He spoke to the pole, his words clipped and deliberate. 

“I’m going to find Hanson,” he promised,  “and I’m going to kill him.  Slowly.  I’m going to make him hurt.” 

The ferocity of the promise was even more potent in his quiet voice.  Hatred didn’t need to shout. 

“Yeah, about that…”  Scott said. 

The spell broke, whatever it was. 

Michael turned to meet him.  His jaw was a block, and his eyes were dry and hard as stones.  “Don’t tell me anger is death, or any tosh like that, Scott.  She was the love of my life, and he took her from me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, buddy-boy.” Scott folded his arms.  “But before you kill him, do me one favour.”

“Yes?”  Stonebridge narrowed his eyes so that they were almost slits: suspicious. 

“Ask him why he did it.” 

“I don’t see what difference that makes.  I’ll kill him anyway.” 

“Humour me.  Cos I know what he’ll say.”

“For his brother.”

He shook his head.  “He did it to hurt you.  Just to hurt you.  Get mad at him, if you want to.  Hurt him.  Kill him slow – fuck, I’ll help you.”

That idea didn’t seem to have occurred to Michael before, because he flicked his eyebrows up.  “Really?”

“Really.  But all the time you do it, you gotta know this… the madder you get, the more he’ll know he won.”

“If I kill him, _I’ll_ have won.”

“No.  If he makes you just like him, _he’ll_ win.  And I fucking _promise_ you this – if he knows you’re feeling what he’s feeling, he’ll die happy.”

“You’re…”

“I _know_ these things, Mikey.”  He looked away at the landscape again, and reached out to shake the gathering ash off the end of his cigarette.  “Evil usually wins against good.  Cos for good to win, it has to win a war.  All evil has to do is _teach_.”

For a long time, Michael stared out at the horizon, his face as cold and stolid as clay.  Scott smoked his cigarette, and watched the muscle jump in Mikey’s jaw.

The sound of a car came to his ears, and he saw Michael’s head turn in the direction of the sound. 

A cloud of dust was billowing above the line of the brush, where the road did a final dog-leg before it reached the house.  “Show-time,” Scott said.  “You got your game face ready?”

“I always have my game face ready, Scott,” Michael said, crisply, jerking up his chin.  There was a little wobble in his voice, that said that the crisp masculinity was a sham, but no-one in Zero would notice it. 

“Great,” Scott said.  He dropped his cigarette butt and stomped it out. 

The cars came around the bend, still quite far away.  There was plenty of distance for them to cover, and Scott stepped down off the porch and walked into the yard.  He took off his hat and waved it around his head, clockwise, waving them in. 

The SUV flashed its headlights, on-off, and came on.  The truck behind it had been covered in the logo of a local truck-hire company, but he knew that the whole Crib was folded up like origami in the back.

A minute later, the cars pulled up, fitting around the Pajero, and the doors opened.  Lady Macbeth got out and strode up, with Sinclair close behind her.  Baxter got out of the truck, and turned on his heel, measuring up their new location with his usual quiet care.  His eyes focused on Scott. 

“ _There’s_ the man,” he greeted; Irish for _Hello_ , Scott thought. 

Michael walked down off the porch.   “Ma’am,” he greeted Lady Macbeth, stiffening into his habitual almost-brace. 

“Sergeant,” she returned his greeting. 

Scott didn’t bother saying hello, but he met Sinclair’s gaze over Dalton’s shoulder and gave Sinclair a nod.  _All’s well_ ; and he saw Sinclair nod back in return. 

Julia Richmond got out of the truck’s passenger seat, and immediately began striding around the truck’s hood, adjusting her gun at the back of her belt.  Her sling was gone, and she wore hip-snug black jeans, and a low-cut black top.  Scott found his eyes drawn immediately to her cleavage.  Lovely, warm boobs snuggled up inside black lycra; _hmmm_.   He’d been there, but he wanted to stroke the soft dark line with his finger anyway. 

“So this is the place,” Dalton said, looking up at the corrugated roof above them.  

“Owner of the place just came and left,” Scott said, taking his eyes off Richmond’s breasts just before she could notice him staring. 

“Did he buy our cover story?” Sinclair asked. 

“Owner swallowed it all; hook, line, and flotti-bobble.” Scott reached up and wrapped an arm around Stonebridge’s shoulder.  “Didn’t I tell you Mikey was made for show-biz?” he gloated happily, pointing at Mikey’s face.  “Heh.”  He gave Mikey’s chest an affectionate thump. 

“That was pre-arranged?” Mikey asked.  He bucked his shoulder and sidestepped out of Scott’s embrace. 

“He thinks he’s getting paid to screw the government out of an imaginary licence fee,” Dalton said.  “He’ll keep his mouth shut.”

“Greedy people are easy to cheat,” Sinclair agreed. 

Dalton walked past them both and up the steps, and disappeared inside.  Sinclair followed her.  Richmond didn’t immediately follow them. 

“How are you, Michael?” she asked. 

Michael opened his mouth, taken by surprise by the sudden question.  For a moment Scott thought he was going to blurt everything – and then the British stiff-upper-lip came down.  “I’m bearing up,” he said.  “I’ll be fine, yeah?” 

“If you need anything…?” 

Stonehenge shook his head.  “I’m bearing up,” he repeated.  He turned and walked away after their officers. 

Richmond met Scott’s eyes with raised brows, but Scott just blew out his lips, and shook his head silently.  _Don’t ask…_ He turned and climbed up onto the porch with Richmond behind him.

When Scott followed Michael inside, he found Dalton on the other side of the room, looking through the back window.

“We have bad news, ma’am,” Michael said. 

Dalton turned to stare at him.  “Well?” she asked.

“There’s no running water,” he said.  “The wind pump’s all dried up.” 

True to form, it was the two women who reacted first.  Scott saw the realization hit both their faces at the same moment.  Richmond let out a heartfelt little groan.

“Why didn’t you tell us when we were on the road?” Sinclair demanded.  He rarely raised his voice, but his eyebrows burrowed in displeasure. 

“Uhhh,” Michael said.  He shot a glance at Scott and stiffened his back even further.  “We were…um…”

_Busy getting a blow-job …_ Yeah, Mikey couldn’t say that.  Scott went to his rescue. 

“We were in contact with the farmer as soon as we arrived,” Scott said.  “By the time we worked it out, you were already ETA ten minutes.  Too late to pick up supplies.” 

“How much do you have?” Sinclair said. 

“Not enough.” 

“We’ll just have to get some,” Dalton said.  “Crib first.”

 

* * *

 

An hour later, Section Twenty was back in business.  Like a high-tech Lego set, the pieces of the Crib came together under Richmond’s direction, each element slotting into its place and firing up. 

“Are we up yet, Richmond?”  Dalton asked, striding in and dashing aside the plastic sheeting that had been hung to keep the sand out of the servers.    

“Ma’am,” Richmond agreed, nodding.  “Last of the connections is coming up…”

“… _Now_ ,” Baxter finished for her, emerging from the power box. 

Scott sat down in a chair, and put his feet up.  He saw Dalton notice his posture.  Good: he was pissing Lady Macbeth off.  Michael came to stand near him, setting his hands in the small of his back in his usual almost-parade-rest.

Richmond tapped a key on her keyboard, left-handed, and the big screen came to life.  The side-bars filled themselves in one by one, and when they’d all filled in she turned and nodded to Dalton.  “Software is all responding, and our sat feeds are A-OK,” Richmond said.  “I’ve already started filtering mission data.”

“All our equipment came through OK,” Baxter said. 

“Perimeter CCTV is up,” Stonebridge said from behind Scott. 

“And so’s the back-up jenny,” Scott filled in.  They had juice, even if the main power source went down.  “And the vehicles are under cover.” 

He’d strung up a set of cables, and hung camo netting across from the edge of the roof to the tree line.  To an overhead observer, it would look as if a bank of bushes had grown overnight.  An infrared scanner would pick up their engines; but if someone was already looking that closely at this particular farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere, their cover was fucked anyway.              

“And here we go,” Richmond said.  The CCTV footage from the different cameras laced together into a real-time mosaic of their surroundings, with angles of entry laid out and blue icons representing friendly vehicles here and there.  Scott had seen Mikey up the wind pump, setting up the cameras. 

Anyone wanting to take them down, the way Latif had in Budapest, would have to get through a net of cameras, and evade a tremendously powerful tactical intelligence suite.  With Julia Richmond sitting in the middle like Moriarty… No, Twenty would _not_ get caught that way again. 

“All right, people,” Dalton said, flicking on the power button of the light-table, and leaning on it.  “Status report.”

“We’ve been getting regular calls from Ava Knox.  She wants a word with Mr ‘Byers.’  Urgently.”

 “We’re not taking calls from her,” Dalton said.  “I hope you haven’t returned any of her calls.  We do _not_ touch anything from the Knox Foundation.  Not after Daisy-Boy turned up so conveniently in Kalk Bay to shoot Adonis.” 

“I’ve blocked her number on my phone,” Michael said. 

Sinclair nodded.  “The military attaché has been asked not to return her calls either.” 

“Next?” Dalton asked. 

“Moyo, our truck driver, is still in a medically-induced coma in Groote Schuur hospital,” Baxter said.  “No news from there.” 

“We’ve had confirmation that our witness reached Pretoria safely,” Richmond said. 

“I hope our man in Pretoria knows to keep him under wraps?” Dalton asked. 

“He’ll be debriefed in his own language, and kept in a British safe house until we need him,” Sinclair said. 

“Ah,” Scott sighed, appreciatively.  “Gotta love support systems.” 

“We’re going to need a very credible witness if we want the world to think that Conrad Knox has really gone over to the dark side,” Dalton said. 

“Pretoria thinks he’ll do,” Richmond said.  “He’s not an educated man, but he’s very talkative, and he’s _very_ angry.  He’ll do well in front of a television camera.”

“For now… what’s the status of Taljaard?” Dalton asked. 

Richmond flicked a button, and the main screen showed the satellite image of Taljaard. 

It was breathtakingly different to the image Scott had seen yesterday.  The shiny warehouse roof that had been a big grey Post-It in the middle of the screen was now a blackened crater.  The yard was still the same, but now spread with emergency vehicles and dotted moving figures. 

“Hey!  What do you know?  Looks like Chief Wiggum _can_ get to a crime scene in less than six months!” Scott said. 

“Half of those are ambulances,” Sinclair pointed out. 

“They’re going to be scratching heads over all those bodies,” Baxter said. 

Stonebridge just clenched his jaw, a single muscle jumping.  His gaze was distracted. 

“The hostiles?” Dalton asked.

“I wasn’t able to track them,” Richmond said.  “I looked at the satellite downlink last night as soon as we got eyes again, but they’d disappeared.  Either they separated _en route_ , or they’d gone to ground by the time our eyes came back.

“Camp B?” Sinclair suggested. 

“ _If_ they went to Camp B, it’s less than forty minutes from Taljaard,” Richmond said.  “But they could have simply split up in different directions.  There are hundreds of SUVs on the roads…”

“Stick with it,” Dalton said to Richmond.  “They didn’t just dissolve like an Aspirin.” 

“Ma’am.” 

 “We still have four trucks to find, and thanks to our Johan Rondganger, we now know what they look like,” Sinclair said. 

“And we know that Camp B, whatever it is, is around here.” Dalton looked up.  “We have work to do.” 

“Right,” Sinclair said.  “I need one volunteer for an historical re-enactment of an authentic Northern Cape experience.  _Hello_ , Sergeant Scott, Sergeant Stonebridge.”

“Uh, oh,” Scott said. 

“One of you is going to take a shovel, and go hunt for diamonds.  We need a latrine.” 

“I’m going to kick my travel agent’s ass.” 

“That would be _me_ , Scott.”  Sinclair flicked him a half-smile.  “The other one is going to drive into Naamloseput, and bring back at least thirty litres of water.  You can work out for yourselves which is which.”  Sinclair turned and walked away. 

Scott held up his hand, knotted into a fist.  “Mikey?” he invited. 

Stonebridge held out his own fist.  One… Two… Three… And again, Scissors cut Paper. 

Stonebridge let out a sad little sigh.  “Have fun.”

“Heh,” Scott chuckled, satisfied. 

_One day_ , he was going to have ‘fess up to Mikey that he always did Scissors because four times out of five Mikey did Paper.  If you were going to develop habits, you’d better not do it around a guy with a photographic memory.  But not today. 

He got out of the chair, and gave Mikey a clap in the chest with his palm.  “Yo.  Want me to bring you a Mars Bar?”  he asked. 

Mikey returned the clap on Scott’s chest.  “Fuck you too, mate.” 

 

* * *

 

The same pick-up trucks were under the tree.  The shadows had shortened a bit, though.  Otherwise, it was the same tiny little hole in the road. 

Scott pulled the Pajero up next to a gas pump under a tired metal sign, and got out. 

First order of business was to get his sunglasses on.  The glare off the baked sand around him bit into his eyes like lasers.  The heat embraced him like a warm glove, evaporating in an instant the memory of the Pajero’s air-con. 

A sound made him turn.  A petrol-jockey was shambling out toward him from the doorway of the gas station, with the limp shoulders of the terminally-bored and the wary hunger of the tip-dependent.  “Unleaded, boss?” he asked, moving automatically toward the pump. 

Scott cringed internally at the deference.  He fought down the urge to tell him he was American, and he knew how to pump his own gas.  “Naah,  I’m cool.  Got any water?” he asked, pointing around him as if the water could jump from any side. 

“Over there, boss.”  He pointed to the shop opposite the petrol station. 

“Yo, thanks, buddy.” 

The shop across the yard (parade ground? paddock? abandoned football field?  It was hard to tell) beckoned him to its doorway. He marched across and stumped in through the door. 

“Hey, there,” he called.

He paused in the doorway to pull off his sunglasses.  The shops was dim, and plain, with whitewashed walls and wire racks – a shop that had never bothered with branding or signage because its clientele had nowhere else to buy.    

Someone moved in the dim back of the shop, coming out behind a rack of plastic ware.  “I fought I saw a car pull up,” the man said.  “Hello.”

“Hey, there.  You got any water?” 

“Over there.” 

Water, in bright plastic five-litre bottles, stacked in a refrigerator.  Just the thing for a long road trip, he guessed.  He opened the door and hauled ten of the bottles to the cash register.

“You’se American?”

“Canadian,” he lied on reflex.   

“We got uh American lady yere,” the shopkeeper told him, with an air as if he expected congratulations on his town’s population. 

“Well, hell,” Scott said.  Another Yank, way out here?  What did she do, marry an elephant?  “How’d you manage that?”

He turned on his heel and checked out the store.  His eye was taken by the word ‘TEA’ on a nearby shelf.

Scott went over to the rack.  They sold tea by the bag, not the box; and there was rooibos.  He picked up a packet in his hand. 

Yeah.  If he was going to put down his roots in Merry Olde England, he’d do it on his _own_ terms.  He wasn’t going to cave into their weird-ass English habits without a fight.  Them, and their cookies, and their mince pies that didn’t have any meat in ‘em, and their chips that weren’t chips – screw ‘em.  He’d have a brew with the guys, but he was damned if he was going to have their tea.  It was going to be rooibos for Damien Scott from here on out. 

He made up his mind and carried it back to the cash register.  “I’ll take…” he started speaking to the shopkeeper.

“Damien?” 

He registered his name, before he recognised the ringing female voice.  He whirled on his heel. 

“Damien Scott!”

 She was coming toward him between the loaves of bread and the dusty packets of biscuits.  She looked just the same as the last time he’d seen her, in Khartoum.  She wore a long tie-dyed blouse over khaki cargo pants and her usual strings of beads and bracelets.  Her hair was bound up today in a whirl of brown curls and patterned bandana.  The shoulder bag was the same, and he knew exactly what was in it. 

“Maggie!” He dropped the tea, and turned to face her.  She was closing on him quickly.

“Well, cover me in chocolate and throw me to the Easter Bunnies.”

“You know each other?” the shopkeeper asked, incredulously. 

“Yeah, everyone in show-biz knows each other,” Scott lied, brusquely, and took a few long strides to meet her, so that their conversation wasn’t immediately under the shopkeeper’s nose.  The very last person he’d expected to run into in a tiny co-op in a one-horse town way out in the Kalahari…  What was there for a warzone junkie to write about out here? 

“What the fuck are you doing here?”  he asked her. 

She wagged a finger at his nose.  “Now I _know_ I’ve got a story!” 

“Heh!” he scoffed, but something dropped in his gut.  “No, you don’t.

“What, you telling me you’re here on a river-rafting trip?  With the English stud-muffin? –where _is_ he, by the way?”  She craned around him, as if Mikey might be hiding on the other side of the emergency car parts, and then dismissed him.  “Never mind.  What are you up to, Damien?  Tell me.”

“What are _you_ up to?  I thought you’d be rolling around with your pals in Syria.” 

“Syria’s full of journos, they don’t need another one.  I had a hunch,  and I followed it.”  She nibbled on one finger, thoughtfully.  “And here you are, so I know there’s something big going down.  _Damn_ , Margaret Amelie Montroe, you’re _good.”_

Scott leaned his back against the water refrigerator.  “You sure you’re not just following me to get laid?”

“You’re not worth a cab ride, let alone a six hour flight.  So tell me, _you’re_ Army…”

“Really?”

“You _used_ to be.  That airstrip.  _Vastrap._   What’s going on out there?”

“Out there?  You mean the old air force base?  Fucked if I know.”  They’d had no clues that Knox was dancing with the SA air force.  Then again Knox had his cock shoved deep in a whole of government asses… why not military asses too? 

“Don’t play the innocent with me,” Maggie said.  “I’m following an independent lead.”  She narrowed her eyes.  “And so are you, and I don’t believe in coincidences.” 

“I’m on vacation!” he protested.  “Can’t a guy go on vacation?”  

“You merc types don’t take vacations.”

She wasn’t buying it, and he decided to change tack.  “Come on,” he lowered his voice to flirtatious drawl.  “What are you hiding, Maggie?  What have you got that I don’t know?  What’s hot about the old airbase?”

“Oh, no.  That’s not how this works.  You scratch _my_ back, _I’ll_ scratch _yours._ ”  There was a note, a lift to her eyebrows, an arch to her neck, which said that references to backs were not just figures of speech. 

Maybe he had a chance with her today?  It was worth pursuing.  If she wasn’t in the mood, she’d let him know.  If she was in the mood, he was about to get laid. 

“Okay,” he drawled, and huffed out a sigh of mock reluctance.  “But you show me yours first.  If yours is hot, I’ll show you mine.” 

“I’ve got a room upstairs…” 

“In the shop?” 

“Andre’s renting me out his spare room.  Nice and private.  And he’s an Afrikaner gentleman.  _Aren’t_ you, Andre?” she asked, over Scott’s shoulder, and then answered herself.  “Yeah, he doesn’t spy on a lady’s business.  Come on.  Let’s go talk.”  She took hold of his shirt and tugged him after her. 

Oh, yeah.  She was definitely in the mood…

“Mr Scott,” the shopkeeper called.  “You wanting this tea too?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Scott called back, but Maggie didn’t give him a chance to stop, just kept hauling on his shirt.  “Just keep it there for me, I’ll be right back.” 

He followed her up the stairs.  She disappeared into a doorway, and he followed her into the room.  He closed the door quietly, and took a moment to check out his surroundings. 

The room was small, and whitewashed, and the narrow bed was wedged between a bookshelf stacked with ring-bound folders and a stack of pallets of canned goods.  She had edged around the foot of the bed, and was standing by the window looking out. 

“I saw you get out of your car,” she said.  “I wasn’t sure if I should say hello, or try to follow you to your hide-out.”

“That so, huh?” he drawled.  He followed her around the bed, and stood behind her in the narrow strip of carpet between the bed and the wall.  The room had a view of parking lot and dead sandy ground.  “You sure you weren’t just making up your mind about showing me your etchings?” 

“Is _that_ what we’re doing?” she asked, archly, her gaze still on the wide yard below the window.  The window was open, and the breeze that came caressed a lock of her hair that had come loose. 

He put his hands gently on either side of her hips, and was delighted when she rocked back against him, inviting his touch. 

Her belt was thick webbing, and he ran his fingers gently up the swell of her hips under her blouse, to rest against the soft skin of her waist.  Her skin was silky soft under his fingers, so soft she seemed almost insubstantial against his calluses. 

“Yeah, you’re a journo, you’ve probably got etchings up the wazoo.” 

As a come-on, it was probably the lamest thing he’d ever said in his life.  But it seemed to work.  She put her hands on his and shifted his hands up and in, to press his palms firmly on her stomach.  Oh, she wanted him, all right. 

“Hey, _I_ got pictures in Time magazine,” she said, leaning against him, still facing out of the window.  “The only place _you’ve_ got pictures is your mom’s fridge.” 

 “Anyway, following me’s not a great idea.  You’d stick out like a sore thumb where we’re staying,” he said.  He was getting aroused; more slowly than usual.    

“Hah,” she said, and he could hear her smile.  “I _knew_ you weren’t here by yourself.”

“Ahh,” he drawled. He lowered his face toward her, and pressed his cheek against the side of her head so that her hair tickled his lips.  She smelled like citrus.  “I can neither confirm nor deny those allegations.” 

“Is that cow Grant here?”

“Uh, no.  Grant was KIA.”

“Killed in action?”  Her hands, which had started moving behind her to feel his body, stopped.  “I thought officer pukes led from the back!” 

“Not this one,” he said.  He pressed his lips against her ear.  “She was a cow, but she was a bad-ass cow.” 

That seemed to amuse her. 

“So, are you gonna tell me why you’re here?” he asked.

“I’m helping a friend."

"Thought you said you were following a lead."  He ran his fingertips down her centre-line.  She didn’t move, just stood relaxed, leaning back into him, and letting his hands roam her body.

"Hey, those two can be the same."

"Sure," he agreed.  He found the drawstring of the blouse and drew it loose. 

"Actually, I'm trying to find a plane.”

 “No planes in Naamloseput, sweetheart.” He ran his hands gently up the long sweet curve of her body under the blouse, and cupped her breasts. 

“But there’s an airstrip.” She nodded at the window.  “Out there.  The old army base.  Vastrap.” 

“Closed down and abandoned,” he said. 

“Not so abandoned that _I_ can get onto it,” she said.  “I’ve tried, and I keep getting blocked by great big assholes I’d _swear_ are NSA.  I’ve got a contact who says he can get me in there.  He’s supposed to meet me tonight.”

NSA – he had an idea that was National Security Agency.  South African spooks; MI5, but with even less oversight.   His thumb found her nipple.  Her breath hitched.

“You think there’s a plane out there?”

“I think there _was_ a plane out there, a week ago.  I’m sure of it.  And now you’re here, and I know I’ve got something.” 

“Maybe,” he temporised. 

“Don’t hedge.  That plane was here.  I can almost smell it.” 

“I can smell _you_ ,” he said.  He pressed his lips to the side of her neck, the soft skin under the tangle of brown hair.  “Mmm.” 

She was leaning back into him, her back against his body, and he could feel her breathing.  He rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and she reached out convulsively and wrapped her hands around the burglar-bars in front of her. 

“I want you,” she said, bucking her hips so that her buttocks bumped his groin.  “Here.”

_Here?_ He boggled.  In front of an open window?  In full view of anyone down there who chose to look up? 

Yes, he remembered.  She hadn’t wanted to close the door in Khartoum.  And he remembered that time in Kosovo, on floor of the balcony with the APCs parked just on the other side of the balustrade.  And that time in Malaysia, with the paper thin walls… she got off on this sort of thing.  It was insane, but…

Well, hell.  Nobody in this place knew him from a bar of soap.  If one stranger was seen bonking the other stranger in the open window, who’d care?  And Damien Scott was not a man who shied away from a sexual challenge.  It would be like starring in his own real-life porno.  If that was how she wanted it, he was good for it. 

He was suddenly fully aroused.  “Want you too.”

He kept one hand cupped around her breast, and ran the other down her stomach.  He pulled her belt open with one hand by feel, hearing the tinkle of the buckle, and then slid his fingers flat into her panties and around into the narrow secret of her groin. 

His fingers found hair, and warmth, and moisture.  She was already slick. 

He needn’t even go this route, if she was so wet already.  He could just go for it, and he knew he could get her off.  But he knew what she liked, and he liked her.  He would do her the way she deserved.  He could wait for his own moment. 

She threw both arms above her head, to wrap her hands around the back of his neck.  “Now… please.”  He could feel her shivering against him. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured. 

He probed at the damp folds down there with his finger, gently, until he found the nub of her clit.  He knew he had the right place when she gave a shuddering gasp and a little soprano “ _Ooh_ ,” of pleasure.  He ran his finger around it in a little circle.  He could bring her off this way, he knew. 

Her hips moved, opening her thighs to give him better access.  His hand could spread out inside her panties, taking up more of her, dipping and stroking across her genitals and returning now and again to flip over her nub.  His fingers explored, while his other hand ran up further to cup her throat, holding the length of her body upright and pressed against him.  She was spread out between his hands, his to pleasure. 

“More, please,” she said.  His fingers were barely brushing her nub, and her hips were making little circular thrusts in an attempt to match his rhythm and increase the friction.    

He obliged.  She was wet, and already close.  He set his forefinger to work, turning and turning, and in surprisingly short time she was panting and shivering.  Her head fell back, and her fingers on the back of his neck grew crabbed, nails digging in, trying to drag him down into her as if she was drowning.  Her back jerked with her approaching climax. 

On the wide yard below, a woman pushing a pram moved into view, waddling toward the shop downstairs.  He watched idly, keeping his fingers turning. 

She was trying to arch up off the floor on her toes, arch into his finger.  “Oh!  Oh!”  

And then he shifted his hand, turned his palm so that his forefinger was still turning, while two more fingers dipped into the hot well of her cunt.  And that was that.  She made a sudden croak, and suddenly she was beating against his hand.   She was lost, oblivious, so close to climax that her eyes were probably squeezed shut. 

“You’re coming,” he murmured. 

“Yes-yes-yes-yes-oh- _shiiiiit_.”  And then she _was._  Her back was thrashing and her voice was coming in little hoarse grunts.  She was still standing, still spread out between his hands, and her thrashing spine had nothing to flex against but his body.  She spasmed between his hands and his groin.  He could feel her climax against his body, and with his hand, as her internal muscles sucked at his fingers. 

A few more jagged spasms; and then she was sagging, sighing, arching languidly.  “Oh,” she sighed.  “Fuck, you’re good.” 

He didn’t want compliments.  He wanted _her_.  He let go of her body and her neck, and turned her around sharply, forcefully, so that suddenly she was facing him.  She clutched at his neck, wobbly on her feet.  He dived in for a demanding kiss, a rutting animal kiss.  He wanted to taste her. 

Her kiss opened as if she was desperate for more of him.  He drank from her lips, tasting and stroking, and his hands pulled the blouse up.  He had to break the kiss to pull the blouse over her shoulders and toss it away, but then he could dive into her bare throat and shoulder, nuzzling and licking at her naked skin.  And then the bra, a simple black job, and that fell away.  Her breasts were full and heavy in his hands, and he stooped to mouth her nipples. 

She was half naked and exposed, and suddenly he didn’t want to share her with the window any more.  He wrapped both arms around her and pulled at her body so that her feet came up off the floor and she had no choice but to clutch at him for support. 

He carried her to the bed, and lowered her onto her back on the mattress, and then kissed his way down her belly as he pushed down her trousers and then her panties. 

Simple cotton panties, white with little flowers.  Mundane daily underwear; which meant she hadn’t gotten dressed that morning with the intention of having sex.  The sight of _him_ had made those panties hit the floor, he realized, with a smug feeling of possession. 

“Granny panties,” he murmured. 

“Don’t crit my undies, just kiss me!” 

He wanted his turn, and she was hot and ready.  He kissed her stomach, licked at her navel, smelling her hot sexual moisture.  Her hands ran over his head and shoulders, tugged at his hair, and she raised her knees to help him get rid of her pants.  Knees raised, legs spread, and he stood up and looked down at her, spread out on the bed. 

He was still dressed, and that wasn’t cool.  He didn’t bother unbuttoning the shirt, just hauled it off over his head; and then tugged at his belt buckle.  His Glock went onto the stack of Lucky Star tinned fish at the side of the bed, and the weight of his spare mag and his knife and his phone made his pants hit the floor with a heavy thud.  Boots, and pull the cuffs pants over his bare feet, and then finally he was naked, his erection standing proud, his arousal tightening his throat. 

She’d watched the whole show with a hungry stare as if she was a starveling watching Gordon Ramsay. 

“Come here, handsome,” she demanded, touching herself. 

“Condom,” he said, stooping to fetch it out of his pocket.  He pulled open the packet, and rolled it onto himself.  She waited, watching him and stroking herself. 

When he was ready he lay down on her, guided down by her arms, and guided himself into her in the same movement.  Her legs lifted around his hips, and locked around the backs of his thighs. 

He slid into her like a knife slipping into its sheath, with a gasp of pleasure.  She was hot and firm around him.  He lay there, on her, and in her, and looked down at her for a moment, resisting the urge to thrust.  Her arms came up and cradled his head. 

“Mmmm,” she sighed,  languidly. 

He began to thrust, watching her.  Pushing gently at first, then a little harder.  She didn’t like _rough_ , he knew; just energetic.  Nothing fancy, nothing but friction, and he could do that.  In and out, in and out, and quickening.  He was growing hot himself. 

“Mmmm,” she said again.  And she was cradling his head, her arms sliding over his shoulders and neck, trying to draw him deeper into her, and her legs were moving against the mattress, trying to find purchase.  Her hips lifted, her back arching up against him, thrusting back at him.  She was meeting his thrusts, cresting up to meet his cock.  And he was riding her with it, cleaving her crests, like a ship riding a steep sea.  He bore down in her, thrusting deep, until the little gasps in his ears became grunts, and her surging crests became jagged spasms of lust. 

Harder and faster.  He bowed his head down into her neck, shoved himself further and further, inciting the friction to a higher and higher pitch.  Harder and faster, the friction hot and delicious. 

He couldn’t help the little noises he was making.  He couldn’t help the fact that his eyes were squeezed shut, and his face was in her neck, and suddenly he couldn’t help himself at all.  He was too far gone.  His shaft pulsed, and his back shook, and the pleasure of falling off the edge whited out his mind.  He felt a groan of release tear at his throat, wrung out of him, and his muscles seemed to blaze as he came, and came. 

The pleasure waned with the last pulsing of his cock, and the sudden slump of his muscles.  “Oh, yeahhh,” he sighed, going limp. 

“Mmmm,” she said, and let her arms fall limp around him. 

Had they come at the same time?  He’d felt shudders in her, heard the grunts in his ears… yes, she’d come.  He could still feel the tremors under him.  _Whoo_ -hoo, Damien Scott, _you_ are a _champion…_

He opened his eyes, and found himself forehead to forehead with her, and she was grinning, a loose lipped lascivious grin like a happy drunk.  He rolled his brow against hers. 

“Well, hello there,” he greeted. 

He pulled gently out of her, feeling hollowed out, and happily limp. 

“Oh,” she moaned.  “That was fun.”  She stretched languidly under him and ran her palms over his back in a slow sweeping caress.  “That was _good_.” 

He lowered himself carefully to her side, and propped his head up on his elbow.  He grinned down at her.  “Just good?”

“We-e-ell…” she let the word slide away, as if she wasn’t sure, and then laughed dazedly at his face.  “So you tell _me,_ sweetie.” 

“Ah,” he sighed, “that was awesome.”  He brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, tucked it behind her ear, and leaned into kiss her temple.  “You’re fucking cool, y’know that?”

“Oh, I know,” she glowed at him.  She didn’t seem inclined to move.  Climax made some women soft and languid as sloths.  She stretched again, uncurling her arms above her head like a cat, and her sigh came out almost like a purr. 

He made himself comfortable at her side. 

“Tell me more about this plane,” he suggested.  “And your friend.”

She sat up, and propped herself up on one elbow, heedless of her breasts. “Is that what counts as pillow-talk for you these days?”

He just grinned at her and rolled his eyes.  “You knew what I was like before you came up here.” 

“Well, all right.”  She drew in a deep breath.  “I was in Nairobi, trying to get a story on M23.” 

“You looked for M23 in Nairobi?” he asked, amused.  “What happened, did you get on the wrong bus?” he teased. 

“I was following a lead.  But the lead evaporated, and then a friend of mine contacted me and asked me for help.  Her name is Olga.  She’s half Ugandan, half Russian.”

“Nice combination,” he mused.  Vodka and chocolate, hmm. 

“Her father is – was – a pilot.  He flew one of those big old Russian cargo jets.  A week ago, his plane went down over Zambia.”  Her voice was quiet, pitched low for the privacy of the pillow.  Her fingers stroked his chest hair, but her eyes were away and somewhere else.  “Blew up in mid-air, they said.  No survivors.”

“Wait,” he said.  “Think I heard about that.  It was an Il-76?”

“Yes. 

“Flown in one of those,” he remembered.  “ _Big_ mothers.” 

“She wants to find out what happened to him.  But she can’t.  Everyway she turns, she gets blocked.”

“Bureaucracy happens,” he warned.  “And planes crash.  Especially those old Soviet tin cans.  Some of ‘em are so old they’re just a bunch of tin strips flying in formation.” 

“Not like this,” she said.  “She got raided by the Ugandan police.  Stop asking, they said.  Your father crashed.  Old plane.  Shit happens.  Bury him and forget about it.  She can’t even get a visa into South Africa.  So she asked me to come along and see what I can see.  I smelled a rat; a big fat stinking corrupt rat.” 

“So what are you doing _here?_ ” he asked.  “Plane went down in Zambia.  That’s, like, almost the other side of the continent.” 

She sat up, and folded her arms, hiding her breasts.  "Because she knows he came here.  He crashed on the return flight.”

“There are lots of places over Africa where the radar coverage is shit.”

She shook her head.  “She _knows_ he came here.  He called her from his mobile on landing, and said he was going to pick her up a present from Upington.  She knows he was in the Northern Cape.  But South Africa’s never heard of him. He flew from Russia to South Africa via Sharjah, but there’s no record of the cargo, there’s no flight plan listed in South Africa, there’s no record that the plane was ever even _in_ South African airspace at all.  She’s asked _everyone_ she knows in the air cargo community, and no-one knows _anything._.” 

“He came, and he went, but he never got home.” 

She lay down again next to him.   “The weird part is the cargo.  He was really happy about carrying it.  He said it was for a good cause and he was getting paid a whopping load of money to carry it, and he’d tell her about it later.” 

“Secret cargo,” he said.  “So secret he didn’t even tell his buddies over a beer.” 

His blood had turned cold.  His mind’s eye held the image of a huge cargo jet; tons of metal and gazillions of interconnected parts, and hundreds, even thousands of little nooks where someone could shove a bomb.  It wouldn’t take more than a moment.  And he could think of someone who wanted to import something from Russia into the Northern Cape; someone with more than enough money to hire an old jet and an old air crew to fly it.  Old, cheap, anonymous and disposable. 

She sat back up again, suddenly alert.  “What?” she demanded, frowning, her blue eyes sharp. 

“Nothing.”

“Oh, hell, no; not nothing.”  She reached up and pulled her hair-tie out of her tattered ponytail, and began wrapping her hair up again; business.  “Your stomach muscles just went like rock.  You _know_ something.  Talk to me, Damien.” 

“One question,” he said.  “Did he get paid for the job?” 

“Yes.  No record that he arrived, but the money was paid into his Kampala bank account the day after the crash.  From an anonymous bank account in the Caribbean.”

“Fuck me.”

“Wait, how did you know that…?”

“I think I’ve just started believing in coincidences.” 

“You agree with me?  It stinks?” 

“It stinks.” 

“She can’t find any sign that he landed at any commercial airport in South Africa.  But there are other airports.  And there’s the Vastrap base right there.  Easily long enough for an Il-76 to land.”

And she had a contact who was going to meet her tonight to help get her into that base?  Yeah, how about _no?_   That was _one_ source she wasn’t going to meet.

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.  “Pack up your stuff.  We’re going.” 

“My camera is…”

“ _All_ your stuff.  _You’re_ joining the ranks of embedded journalism…” 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

## TUESDAY AFTERNOON

## NAAMLOSEPUT, NORTHERN CAPE

 

Maggie fitted into the Pajero as if she owned it.  Her camera came out of the shoulder-bag, and she took a few shots of the country-side as he drove.  And then, sidelong, a few shots of him. 

“Hey,” Scott protested. 

“Come on,” she urged. “One to send your mom.” 

“Huh,” he grunted, and then turned his face into her lens and gave his cheesiest grin.  The shutter went _cah-click, cah-click, cah-click._

“Great,” she said, and sat back to check out her shots on the camera’s screen.  “That’s great, she’ll like that.” 

It would get printed out and stuck on his mother’s fridge, he knew.  She had the pics from the Khartoum shit-storm as well, and without their faces blurred out – including the very instant when he’d got shot, and fell over onto his ass in the dirt. 

_Other_ people’s Moms put up their kids’ _travel_ pictures…

Maggie reached over to the back seat, and drew out the plastic shopping bag.  “So, what’s with the tea?  You know this isn’t actual _tea_ tea, right?  It’s a kind of herbal thing.”

She pronounced ‘herbal’ the way it was supposed to be pronounced; and it was such a nice change it struck him _more_ forcefully than hearing is as ‘ _Huh_ -rbal.’  “Yeah, I know.”  He gave the little packet a glance.  “It’s for me.” 

“I didn’t know you were into herbal tea?” she said, sounding surprised and pleased.   

“I’m not,” he said.   

“Why’d you buy it, then?”

“Because it’ll get on Mikey’s nerves.  It’ll get on _all_ their nerves.  Limeys love their tea.  Mikey keeps teabags on his belt where I keep condoms.  I shit you not.  They all get issued with plastic mugs, and they all lose them, because you can’t brew a cuppa in a plastic mug.”

“All English people get issued with plastic mugs?”  She frowned at him, unsure whether he was having a joke at her expense. 

“No, no.  The British _Army_ ,” he corrected.  “It’s like they’ve all gone, _Hey!_   _Here’s_ a national stereotype!  _Yeah!_   Let’s climb all over it!  Let’s all sit down on top of our national stereotype and have a _nice cuppa!”_ He banged his fists on the steering wheel.  “Brits!  They’re all mad.  Teabags instead of condoms!  _Where_ are your _priorities?_ ”

“These Romans are crazy,” she quoted. 

“But,” he sighed, deeply, “I love ‘em anyway.  If they’re going to have a cup of tea every two hours, I may as well do the same.”

“So why don’t you?” 

“Oh, hell, no.  If I just fall in line, they’ll be rubbing their hands together saying, look at _that,_ the American’s growing some sense!  Ee- _yup,_ _‘ee’s_ learnin’ to be a _roight_ proper Tommy, ‘ee is.”  His parody of the Corporal Beckinsale’s accent was terrible, but at least she wasn’t around to hear it.  

“So, you’re going to start drinking herbal tea, just to prove a point?” 

“Yup.”

She tossed the tea back into the packet.  “I s’pose it’s a good thing you’re doing something _healthy_ , at least.”  

“If you think the tea is shocking, here’s worse: Mikey’s got me watching cricket.” 

“You’re shitting me!”  One eyebrow went up, one eyebrow went down; she still wasn’t sure he wasn’t pulling her leg. 

“Hah.  Some days I feel like that chick who got into the Freemasons by hiding in a cupboard.”     

“Damien Scott. This is serious.  Do we need to hold an intervention?” 

“Naaah.  I can stop any time I want to.  I’m not addicted.  I’m only a _recreational_ Englishman.”  An idea occurred to him and he laughed aloud over the steering wheel.  “Here’s an idea.  When we get there, I’ll make a cup of _this_ stuff, and you drink it, and make out like this’s the greatest stuff ever invented.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  Oh My _Gawwwd_ , this is _awesome_ , this is to _die_ for.”  He pitched his voice up into a falsetto.  “This is the best tea I’ve ever had in my _life_.”

“Why?”

“Limeys love their tea, and as far as they’re concerned, _that_ ,” he bobbed an index finger at the back seat,  “is not tea.  Michael will go apeshit.”

“You are such a troll!”

“Yeah, I know.  But I have to find a way to fit in somehow.”

“Only if you’re staying a long time.”

“I’m planning to.”

“What about going back to the States?”

He tilted his head.  “ _Could_ go back,” he conceded.  “ _Rather_ go forward.”

“And you’re cool with that?”  she asked.  “Last time I saw you, you were all hell-bent on going home.” 

“Things change,” he shrugged.

“Such as?”

“Such as…” 

The first thought that popped into his mind was the fact that Mikey had called _him –_ not the doctor, not 999, not even his own father – on that horrible night when Kerry had woken up in pain, with the blood running into the mattress and the baby already gone although none of them had known that then. 

In the dark, and frightened, Michael Stonebridge had screamed to _him_ for help.  He couldn’t forget that.  That was family. 

He couldn’t tell Maggie that, though.  That might end up in a book, and that wasn’t something he wanted to see in print.  She was like a walking radar set, always listening and taking notes.  She never minded listening to him talk, because his verbal diarrhoea was grist for her mill. 

He took a deep breath.  “You know how sometimes you count your life in years since big events?”  he asked.  “Twelve years since 9/11.  Nine years since my court martial.” 

Nine years since he’d got on that bus to Mexico, and left his country and his parole officer behind him.  Sometimes he wondered if the asshole was still waiting for his two o’clock appointment.  Nine years, and all he had to show for it was an international driver’s licence and a rotten conscience.   

Seven years since the Shark in the Dark had turned his back on Christy Bryant and the CIA ...

“And then something happens, and you start the clock ticking again.”  He glanced at her to see if she was still following.  “I realized, I’ve started a new count.  It’s been a year and eight months since I went to the UK.  The clock’s started ticking again.” 

“You think too much,” she told him. 

“I’ve been a refugee for a long time.  Now I want to be an immigrant.  There’s a difference, y’know?  Refugees look backward, not forward.  I’ve started looking _forward_.  And I like the UK.  I like the people, I like their fucked-up humour, I like the TV, I even like the frickin’ cricket.  I’ve got friends there, now.  And I can eat the food, and I can take the climate, and I’m not _so_ foreign that I scare little kids.”

“There’s that,” she agreed.  She’d also had the experience of being a small child’s first sighting of an _umlungu_.  It was a startling feeling.

 “Course, there are times I look at the warm beer and the little cars and the narrow roads and want to scream,” he admitted.  “And there are times I want to go into a store and order food and know what I’m getting is what I _asked_ for and not… mince pies,   _fuck_... and Marmite… But hey, I’ll get used to it.” 

“There’s no place like home.” 

He shrugged.  “Except that if you give it long enough, _home’s_ not like home.  Did I ever tell you about my grandmother?”

“Latvia?  Or Lithuania?” 

“She got out of Lithuania in Forty-five, just before the Iron Curtain came down for real.  She always talked about the old country.  Always talked about how Lithuania’s this, Lithuania’s that.”

“Immigrants do.”

“Yeah.  Until the Soviet Union fell apart.  And she went there on vacation to take a look at the old place.  And I’ll never forget what she said.”

“Yeah?”

“She said, Lithuania of Ninety-Two isn’t Lithuania of Forty-Five.  It’s had fifty years of history that she just didn’t share.  She said, yeah, like it or not, the States is home, now.  She can’t go back; cause back just doesn’t exist any more.” 

“That’s sad.”

“Are you shitting me?  That’s not sad, that’s how immigration _works_.  Time passes, and the new place becomes home.  I’ll stay in the UK, and time passes, and then one day the States will be where I was _from._ ”

“That might take a long, long time.”

“Yeah, but I don’t mind working to get what I want.”

“Will they even let you, with a drug conviction?”

“I’ve talked about it with Oliver Sinclair.” 

“Oliver Sinclair?  Guy from Khartoum?” 

“Yeah,” he grinned at her.  “You’ll see him soon.  He’s going to fix things with the Home Office, nice and quiet, so I’ll get Indefinite Leave to Remain.  And then twelve months after that, I can apply for citizenship.” 

The gate to Naamloseput Farm was still standing open.  He drove through, and soon the Pajero was jumping and bumping over the gravel, digging deep like a loaded ferry.  She reached up a hand and gripped the roof for support.

“But don’t tell anyone about it,” he added.  “So far, only me ‘n Sinclair know about it.  It’s not official yet.” 

And beside, he thought, if Christy Bryant still thought he could be tempted back to Langley, he could play it to his advantage. 

 

* * *

 

Stonebridge zipped up and buckled his belt.  He’d picked on the reservoir under the base of the wind pump, because it was out of direct LOS of the building if he kept below the rim of the berm, and because the tower’s base itself was out of view of their cameras.  He didn’t want to relieve himself in full view of Richmond’s webcams. 

He tucked his shirt back into his trousers as he climbed up the edge of the berm, and paused on the rim.  The Pajero was bumping into the yard on the crest of its own dust cloud.  It came to a stop, and he heard the engine cut out. 

His lover was back.  He felt his heart sing a little bit inside him as the driver’s door opened and Scott got out. 

A moment later, the passenger door opened up, and a woman got out.  He saw curly brown hair tumbling from a loose pony-tail, and a khaki vest, and a camera bag. 

That journalist woman!  He stopped. 

She stepped around the front of the Pajero, wagging one index finger at Scott in flirtatious admonition.  Scott dug his thumbs into his belt, and laughed at her.  His head lolled back languidly with laughter, his tongue flicking out the corner of his mouth, and as if Stonebridge had seen it happen, _he knew._

Scott fucked that woman. 

The shock hit his chest like the AK round last night, slamming breath and self-consciousness out of him. 

Scott fucked that woman. 

His stomach shook, his muscles turned to water, and he wobbled over backwards.  His heels couldn’t take his balance any more, and his knees simply gave way, tumbling him down off the berm. 

He landed on his backside in the grass, gasping and clutching at his chest. 

Scott _fucked_ that woman. 

The words repeated themselves in his head.  _He fucked her.  He fucked her._

_He waited until he was out of my sight, and then he fucked someone else._

The pressure in his chest was too tight to breathe, and he was sitting in thorns. 

_No, it can’t be.  You’re jumping to conclusions.  Mark 1 Eyeball, confirm status…_

He scrambled forward.  Hands on hot stones, scratching on dry fallen scrub, and he raised himself so that he was sitting on hands and knees.  He raised his head to look over the top of the berm, his face level with the long grass shrouding the gravel. 

Scott and the woman were out of the car, and Dalton was on the porch with Sinclair at her side.  Scott was halfway between the two, his arms outstretched toward both parties like Christ the Redeemer in Rio.  He was speaking urgently, his hands bobbing with emphasis.   

He didn’t know why he looked, but he didn’t need to look again.  _He fucked her._   He pushed himself backwards so that he wouldn’t have to look any more, and collapsed onto the ground. 

His guts had turned to water, and he felt sick.  His skin had gone cold, and the ground under his hands was far away, the gravel as minutely-detailed and irrelevant as the surface of Mars. 

_He fucked her as soon as he got away._

Whatever he’d had… whatever he and Scott had done… whatever had been between them… had been only in his mind.  He’d been Scott’s fuck, Scott’s brief hump, and that was it.  Everything else, everything he’d built on those moments, that sexual closeness, was fake…

He found himself drawing his legs up to his belly, the gravel under him searing into his bare arm like a hotplate. 

_He fucked her.  He fucked me, and then he fucked her._

He was so stupid. 

He sat up and glared at the reservoir, and the dry grass glared back at him.  The screech of the cicadas mocked him, shrieking at his irrelevance and stupidity. 

This was all his own stupid fault. 

He was nothing special to Scott.  Everything they’d had together had meant nothing to Scott.  All the love and trust and glorious sex had meant nothing. 

He pressed his fists in his head and stared at the gravel between his boots.  His chest hurt.  He closed his arms around it, wheezing in actual, physical pain.  He hurt. His heart hurt.  His ribs hurt.  His lungs refused to breathe without pain. 

_He fucked her_. 

He was nothing to Scott.  All of it, everything they’d done, meant nothing.  He meant so little, Scott hadn’t even bothered to break up with him first.  As soon as he was away, he’d leapt on the next person. 

He was a fool.  He’d given himself up as queer, he’d revealed himself as a literal cocksucker, he’d put all his faith in Scott, and it had meant nothing to Scott.  Scott had indulged him as if he was a child, laughed at his earnest desires, and moved on, as an adult turns away from a child to speak to another adult.  He would be a figure of fun to Scott.  Scott had taken his love, and shoved it into his back-pocket with his Zippo.  He’d put Stonebridge’s virginity on his bedpost and moved on. 

He was in sight of the webcams from here. 

By now, everyone in the Crib would know that Scott had found a new fuck-buddy.  He was a fool, and his humiliation and his heartbreak was in full view of them all.  He would have to go in there, and look at Scott, and Scott would know that he knew, and see his humiliation for what it was. 

He shoved himself to his feet, blinded by the sun and his rage, and deafened by the cicadas.  The rusted legs of the wind pump were rooted in the ground, and he wobbled over to them, reached out a hand to grasp the hot metal for balance.   He staggered in the heat of the sun, and the fire from the sky blasted all self-delusion out of him. 

What had he expected?  What the hell had made him so dumb as to think he meant anything to a man-whore like Damien Scott?  His own stupidity had led him to this.  It was his fault, as much as Scott’s.  He was a fool to think Scott was any better than a whore.  He was a grimy, sordid skank; a male slut; a filthy beast who lied and killed and flapped his dirty genitals at anyone who stayed still long enough.  He’d had Scott’s dick in his mouth just that morning, and it had felt so good, and all along it had meant nothing.  Scott put his dick into hundreds of mouths. 

And it wasn’t even as if Scott had hidden what he was.  Life for Scott really was one long pussy-prowl.  Fucking meant nothing to Scott, fucking had _never_ meant anything to Scott, and he was a fool to think it had.  He’d known in Kalk Bay that Scott considered all sex, even sex with a man, as nothing worth conversation or consideration.  He’d known the nature of the man he was throwing around on that bed, and he’d gone ahead and fucked him anyway. 

He’d always known, but his stupid, pathetic heart had overridden his brain, and like a child he’d convinced himself that he was _different_ , that he was _special_ , that his own feelings were reciprocated, that what was precious to him was _real_.  He was pathetic.

His legs gave way under him, and he sat down, in the blind spot of the cameras.  

He’d met Scott in a _brothel_ , the brothel where he had _worked_ , for fuck’s sake, and what the fuck had he thought that meant?  Damien Scott – not a shark but a bum, not a soldier but a rentboy.  A disgusting, dirty … and for a while Stonebridge had thought he’d loved him? 

Love?  Love _that?_  

The shame and pain burned deep in his gut like acid.  He was sitting on his knees, staring at the dirt in front of him, dry-eyed, and his chest burned with dry hatred. 

The cicadas shrieked, uncaring.  He couldn’t help himself.  He pressed his fists to the sides of his face and the laughter came out like something alien.  He laughed at it all, laughed at his own pathetic foolishness.  The laughter felt wrong, but it was all he could do.  He rocked himself back and forth, pressing his fists into his mouth. 

His wife was gone.  His lover was gone.  And Damien Scott had used him like you used a condom and flushed him away.  He had nothing left. 

He had nothing left. 

The laughter came to an end as quickly as it had started.  The silence shocked him. 

He had nothing left.  He had thought that before, but he’d had his job to cling to.  He’d screamed for help to Scott before, as if he meant anything to Scott.  Scott and the job.  Hanson and Kerry.  Section Twenty and Conrad Knox.  He had nothing left.

He couldn’t take it any more.  The agony of his shame, of his guilt, of his stupidity, of the pathetic juvenile _silliness_ in front of Scott… it was more than he could squash down into the cold still centre of his soul.  It unmanned him entirely.  He couldn’t take it any more.  

To think was to act.  His gun was in his hand, solid and heavy. 

He’d thought about this before, but he’d put the thought away.  He had had a job to do.  Well, they could do it just as well without him. Michael Stonebridge, regimental closet cocksucker.  He would go to join Kerry, where-ever she was.  And if there was no _there_ … well, no loss. 

His thumb pressed down the safety. 

He’d felt relief when he’d cut his arm open with the knife blade.  Doing this would surely bring even more relief.  Pain was better than grief, but unconsciousness was better than pain, and he could give himself the ultimate unconsciousness right now.

 

* * *

 

“There is _no way_ ,” Lady Macbeth insisted.

“I didn’t come all this way just to turn around and go home again,” Maggie insisted, on Scott’s other side.

“It’s not happening,” Dalton repeated, for the third time.  “Scott, take her straight back to town.”

“I’m not going back to town without answers, lady.”  Maggie put her hands on her hips, and planted her feet.  Stubbornness personified, but she was matched by the stubbornness coming from the porch. 

Scott stood between them, the middle-man, and he hoped he wasn’t going to have to pull them apart.  He had a funny feeling that Maggie would come off worse in a cat-fight, and he didn’t want to see that. 

“We need her,” he said to Dalton.  “She’s dropped into our laps, and we can use her.” 

“By bringing a journalist onto the operation?”

“What’s wrong with bringing a journalist into the operation?  It’s called embedded journalism!”

“Embedded journalism and unofficial-and-deniable intelligence operations do not mix, Scott.”

“We’re not going to be in the business of unofficial forever,” he argued.  “We need someone who can get on the horn and shout it out all over the world.  We’ve been scratching our heads over it for days, and here’s the answer! We need her.” 

“He does have a point,” Sinclair put in, mildly. 

“ _There!_ At least _Sinclair_ agrees with me!”  Scott said. 

“At the very least can I come inside out of the sun?”  Maggie asked.

“No!” Dalton said. 

“Perhaps,” Sinclair said, smoothly, “perhaps you’d care to wait in the car for a moment, while we talk this over?  Clearly we need to come to some sort of decision.  Just five minutes for a brief council of war?”

“Sit in the car so you can come to some idea of how to hustle me out of here?  I don’t think so.” 

“Maggie,” Scott warned, and he turned his head to her.  “Just give us a minute, okay?  We’ll work something out.”  He dropped her a wink that the others couldn’t see. 

She saw the wink, and glared at him, and then her steel melted. 

“Fine!” she threw her hands up in the air.  “You were in such a hurry to drag me out here, now you want to talk about it?  Fine.  Go ahead.  Talk.  I’ll wait.  I waited six days to get into Basra; I can wait five minutes for your tin hat to decide _I’m_ not the enemy around here.”  She turned and stalked away. 

“Great!”  That was as good as a blessing, from her. 

Negotiations always worked better if you could sing a different tune to each party.  He’d gotten Antagonist Number One out of the picture, and now he could work on Antagonist Number Two. 

Lady Macbeth still looked like she wanted to grab a dagger and put an end to a Scott, but he turned his back on Maggie and walked up to the porch. 

“This is our big chance,” he said.  “I know Maggie; I’ve known her for years.”

“She was the one who took the pictures of the Khartoum operation.”  Sinclair was moving up to Dalton’s side. 

“Which she should _never_ have been allowed to publish,” Dalton said. 

“She _is_ a professional, though,” Sinclair said, with a wag of his head.  “We could use a professional now.”

“Listen.” Scott climbed up onto the porch and stood facing her.  “We’ve been scratching our heads trying to figure out how we can sell the idea of Conrad Knox to the media.  If _we_ jump up and down saying, ‘Yo dawg, Conrad Knox is a bad guy,’ no-one’s going to believe us…”

“The British Government…”

“Doesn’t have much of a following on Reddit, does it?” Scott interrupted.  “But _she_ does.  And here she is.  She’s got all the contacts.  And she been published in Time magazine, and New Statesman, and Newsweek, back when it was a thing – all the editors know her.   She’s got a proven track record for blowing dirty stories sky high.  She blew the story of the arms dealer and the Sudanese minister and the janjaweed, and _those_ pictures went all over the world…” 

“Credited with helping nudge the Sudanese secession along,” Sinclair added. 

“And I _know_ her word is good.  She protects her sources.”

“The Khartoum job didn’t bounce back on Twenty,” Sinclair said.  “Colonel Grant asked her to keep names out of it, and she did.  Nothing came back to MI6 about it; as far as the media is concerned, we were private contractors working for Crawford.”

“Come on, she can do what we can’t do,” Scott said.  “The story _has_ to get onto the media sooner or later.” 

“What exactly are you proposing, gentlemen?”  Dalton asked. 

Scott raised his brows.  “ _Full_ access,” he breathed. “ _Every-_ thing.  Give her everything we know about Nostromo.  Show her the pictures; show her Knox’s butcher’s bill.  Everything we’ve got.” 

“Full access into a military intelligence operation?”  Dalton sounded scandalised.

“She’s a warzone junkie,” Scott said.  “Kosovo, Iraq, Kabul …” He was going to have to make some confessions.  “Look.  I’ve worked for her, as her security adviser.  I’ve got her up close and personal into some real scoops.  She knows that if I say something’s not safe, it’s not safe.  I can vouch for her.” 

“She’ll pull it up into a story, and it’ll get further, faster, coming from her,” Sinclair nodded toward the Pajero, “than it would if it came from Whitehall.”  He rubbed his beard, thoughtfully.  “This could work.”

“Yeah,” Scott said.  “Particularly if Whitehall backs up the story.”  He faced Dalton again.  “And she’s given us an independent lead.” 

“A lead?” 

“Yeah.  Which she’s going to _dig_ at, anyway, until either she pulls something out of the ground, or Knox smacks her.”  He shrugged.  “But it’s a trade-off.  _She_ wants a story.  _We_ want Knox.  Our – how do you spooks say it? – our _interests_ coincide.” 

Dalton eyed Maggie, standing over by the Pajero wasting pixels on pictures of the wind-pump.  “You can control her?”

“You don’t _control_ the media,” Sinclair said.  “You learn to sing in tune with them.” 

“Only one way to find out.”  Scott turned around.  “Maggie!  Yo!”

She lowered the lens and walked over. 

Dalton leaned against the pole.  “If I let you in on this,” she said to Maggie.  “You don’t publish until I say you can publish.  You don’t name names.  You don’t name places, or weapons, or tactics… you let me review whatever you’re going to write before you hit send…”

Maggie started shaking her head before Dalton had finished.  “Whoa, lady, I don’t…” 

“Those are my terms,” Dalton insisted.  “In return, you get to watch us take down WMD’s that have gone missing in Africa.” 

“WMD’s?”  Maggie half-turned towards Scott.  “ _WMD’s?_   Like, _actual_ missing WMD’s?  Or more of that Iraq shit again?”

“Real WMD’s,” Scott confirmed.  “Big ka-blooeys.  Broken arrows.” 

“Holy shit!” Maggie exulted.  “Damien!  Why didn’t you tell _me_ this story was so big?”

Scott shrugged his shoulders, but Maggie had already turned to Dalton.  “I’m in.”  She thrust out her hand.  “Maggie Montroe, international investigative reporter.”

“Major Dalton.”  The two women shook hands.  “You may call me Major Dalton.  And I believe you’ve already met Oliver Sinclair…” 

“You seem a lot happier than you did the last time we met,” Maggie said to Sinclair. 

“True,” Sinclair agreed, smoothly.  “ _Not_ being in handcuffs improves my outlook on life.”

“So, what’s the story with the WMD’s?” 

Scott sighed to himself in relief. 

“Come inside,” Dalton said.   She led the way into the Crib.  She pushed the plastic sheeting aside and swept in, and Maggie followed her. 

Scott saw Maggie stop short, astonished at the sight inside the building.  Plastic sheets hung down the periphery of the building, and the blue lights of the Crib glowed inside.  It had to look impressive to someone who’d never seen it before.  Hell, _he’d_ been impressed, and he’d seen plenty of full-strength FOB’s. 

“Welcome to the bridge of the Starship Enterprise,” he said.  “Our mission, to boldly kick ass where no ass was kicked before.” 

“Sergeant Richmond, Sergeant Baxter.”  Dalton pointed the two of them out in passing, and then turned to face Maggie so that the main screen was behind her like a green screen.  “Briefly, we are in pursuit of four nuclear weapons that were constructed in South Africa in the 70’s.  They were believed dismantled.” 

“I take it they weren’t, or you wouldn’t be here.”  Maggie turned on her heel in the middle of the Crib.  Her camera was in her hand, held at waist height.  She wasn’t taking pictures, but Scott would be willing to bet the recording device in her pocket was zinging. 

Baxter and Richmond were sitting down, looking her over with as much interest as she was looking at them.  They’d clearly heard the conversation through the outside pick-ups, because neither of them looked surprised by her appearance in the most heavily-classified abandoned farmhouse in the country.  There was no sign of Michael, but Scott cast his mind back, and remembered catching sight of him outside as they’d driven up. 

“They were taken away, and buried in secret,” Dalton went on.  “A little nest egg for a rainy day.  Except that they’ve fallen into the wrong hands.  Our target has acquired all four weapons, and suitable expertise to re-habilitate and restore them.  He acquired nuclear triggers from one of Gadaffi’s henchmen.  We know he also has four old Soviet medium-range missiles with improvised mobile launch platforms.”

“Wait,” Maggie said.  “This sounds like a dream.  Four nuclear bombs?”  She looked at Scott.  “For real?”

“I’ve seen them,” Scott confirmed. 

“Why?”  she asked. “Terrorism?”

Dalton bobbed on her toes.  “We do not know what he intends to do with them, but for the sake of stability all over the continent, _we_ intend taking them from him.  One way or another.”

“Who’s _him?_ ” she asked.  “Some dictator?  Assad?  Al Shabaab?”

“Yeah…not exactly,” Scott drawled.  “See, that’s where _you_ come in.  It’s Conrad Knox.”

“Conrad _Knox?”_ Her voice went up in an incredulous squeak.  “Mr Africa?  You’re shitting me!”

“We believe he’s lost his mind.”  Dalton folded her arms.  “And with his money and connections, what might have been a simple medical problem in anyone else…” 

“… is real bad news!”  Maggie still seemed flummoxed by the idea.  “Conrad Knox! Holy shit!  No wonder this isn’t all over the news!” 

“… _Yet,_ ” Scott added.  “Now you.” 

Maggie cleared her throat.  “I was in Nairobi when a friend contacted me, asking me to help her find out what happened to her father…”  It took a few minutes to explain. 

“An Ilyushin-76 is a big plane,” Sinclair said.  “You don’t hire a plane that size to carry a packet of M&Ms.” 

“I think it landed in the air base, Vastrap,” Maggie said. 

“Or _not_ ,” Scott said.  “I’ve flown on a few of those, back in the day…”  He didn’t need to add, _back when I was an international pariah involved in some deep dark shit._   “They were built by the Russians to handle supply operations without needing local infrastructure.  They can land just about anywhere …”

“But if it landed anywhere else, it might be seen,” Dalton mused, leaning over the light-table and staring into her imagination.  “If it landed in Vastrap, no-one would see it except military personnel.  And we already know Knox has senior cabinet ministers in his pockets.” 

“Joseph Dreyer,” Scott said. 

“But what would the plane be carrying?”  Maggie asked.

“Our rockets are missing one thing,” Sinclair said. “Fuel.” 

“All right,” Dalton said.  She turned to Richmond.  “Vastrap.  Let’s see what we can see about that place.  Find out contacts to Knox, in that area.  Friends, guests, business contacts…” 

They were getting down to business, and an audience would only distract them.  “Let me give you the guided tour,” Scott said to Maggie. 

“Okay, lead away.” 

He gestured around him.   “This is the Crib, our mobile centre,” he said.  “It’s basically a whole FOB that we can pack up in the back of a truck in less than an hour.”

“Forward operations base?”  She followed him away from Primary One and the main screen. 

“Yup.  It’s fucking cool.  From here we coordinate missions, collect and crunch Intel, run surveillance, do mission briefings… We can run up to four missions at a time – not now, obviously, cos the whole crew isn’t here – We’ve got Blue Team Tracking, real-time satellite imagery, video conferencing, and the software glues it all together into a complete tactical picture.  We can access satellite up- and down-links, monitor telephone and radio frequencies, listen in on Internet data…”  He ran out of breath before he ran out of things to say.    

“That’s creepy.”   

Typical civilian.  “GIYF,” he shrugged.  “Most of the time I run around with a voice in my ear that says, _Yo_ , hostiles to your north-east, road takes a left… that sort of thing.” 

“Do you always take advice?”

“Most of the time.” 

He led her to the weapons locker.  “Most of the team’s not here, cos we’re officially not here at all, so we’re running light.  And we can pack up and go in an hour.  Here, we’ve got a range of bang-bangs.”  He showed her the steel cages with the long barrels of weapons gleaming inside, the boxes of bullets.  “Toys for all occasions, from tactical assaults to sniping to CP.”

“You’ve got enough to take on an army.” 

“Yeah.”  He led her away from the weapons.  “Here’s first aid, sleeping quarters, three day’s rations apiece.  Check this out.  Armour.”  He picked up the vest and turned it around in his hands.   

“I’ve worn armour before,” she said. 

“Yeah,” he agreed.  He usually stuffed her into body armour if he could get hold of it if they were in hostile turf.  “But not like _this._   Cool thing about working for a unit that doesn’t officially exist is that we get all the toys that don’t exist either.  An upgrade of a knock-off of Dragon Skin, unofficially pinched by Mossad, and unofficially traded to MI6 in exchange for fuck-knows-what.”

“ _That_ sounds trustworthy.” 

“Naah.  It’s great.  We can take a point-blank shot to the chest from a forty-five without a bruise.”

“And I bet you’ve tried it for real, haven’t you?

“Hell, yeah.  Wouldn’t you?” 

“Get shot in the chest for fun?  Hell no!”

“Hurt like hell, and it put me on my ass.  It’s become a bit of a running joke.  Mikey keeps asking permission to shoot me again, and Sinclair keeps turning him down.”  He patted the front of the vest.  “It’s not as heavy as the old Interceptor, so it can go under a shirt without showing.  Mikey wears the side plates sometimes.  Makes it heavy, but Mikey’s built like a brick shit-house so he doesn’t notice the extra weight.  I don’t bother with the side plates.  I have enough trouble keeping up with Michael Schumacher without ‘em.”

He led her back into the Crib’s CP.  “Liam Baxter.  Known as the Leopard.  Now, you might be thinking, a leopard’s not that bad-ass, but the important thing about a leopard is it moves so quiet, you don’t even know it’s _there_ till it’s eaten all your dogs…”   He turned around and gestured towards Richmond.  “ _A-a-and_ we have Sergeant Julia Richmond.  Officially a girl, unofficially Special Forces.” 

Richmond sat back, her lips pursed and her eyes doubting.  She gave a glance at her screen to ensure that Primary One was still doing what it was supposed to be doing, and then stared up at Scott with silent suspicion. 

“I didn’t know there were any female Special Forces,” Maggie said. 

“There aren’t,” Scott said, exulting.  “Everyone knows there are no women in SF.” 

“But…”

“She doesn’t exist. Everyone _knows_ there are no women in SF,” Scott said.  “There are no women in the SAS, or the SBS, or Delta, or _any_ of those outfits.  You can guess what kind of nasty shock the bad guys get, from soldiers who don’t exist...”  He’d seen it happen, and it was _beautiful._  

Richmond had relaxed when she realized she wasn’t being hazed.  “On paper,” she explained, “I’m an Army linguist, on long loan to Svalbard.  But there’s a Sergeant James Richmond in the SAS, who just _happens_ to get issued _really_ _small_ boots and body armour…”  Her eyelashes fluttered demurely.   

“Women can’t even try out for Special Forces,” Scott said.  “There’s only _one way_ for a woman to get in.”

“And what’s that?’

“The MOD called me in for an interview, and offered me the posting,” Richmond said.  “Based on my language skills, and a few things that happened in… never mind where.” 

“So don’t take pictures of _her_ ,” Scott said, wagging his index finger in Richmond’s direction.  “All the rest of us, but not _her_.  Boobs are kinda hard to Photoshop out, okay?  And _that_ kind of April Fool’s joke is worth keeping for next year.” 

He led Maggie to the back of the Crib.  “Here’s the sleeping quarters.  Inflatable mattresses, take up less space than cots, we just blow ‘em up at bedtime.  There are never less than two people in here at any time, ever, even if there’s no mission running.  The Intel in here is worth taking the place down, let alone the weapons.  So we do night shifts.  We’ve got an urn so the Limeys can have tea, mattresses, lockers...” 

His eye was taken by something out of place.  His footlocker was next to Mikey’s, as always, and there was a piece of paper stuck to its grey door.   He walked over to and had a look. 

It was a grey-scale photograph of a dachshund sitting in front of the Stars and Stripes, gazing back at the camera with utter gravitas.  The dog wore camo, with a pistol holstered at its stumpy shoulder.  

“Fuck me,” he said, delighted.  “It’s a Special Forces dog!” 

“An American Army wiener-dog,” she said.  “Someone’s messing with you.”

“They’re Limeys,” he said.  “They don’t mess with me.  They _take the Mickey_.  They take the Mickey, non-stop, twenty-four-seven, three-sixty degrees ‘round the clock.”

She began to grin at him.  “You!” she said, in delight.  “I know why you like them so much!”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’ve got the same fucked-up sense of humour.”  

“I give ‘em back as much Mickey as they take,” he said.  He blew on his nails in a mock gesture of self-congratulation.  

“I’ll bet.”

“Actually … they don’t take the Mickey out of _me_ …” he paused dramatically, to frame his lips around the word, “They _extract_ the _Mi_ chael.”  He looked around for Michael, to gauge his reaction. 

And Michael was gone.

He turned, checked his back, but Michael was not around.  He wasn’t doing his 200pd Slender Man act somewhere in a corner; he was actually _gone_. 

“Damien?” Maggie asked.  “You okay?”

“Uh, yeah.”  He looked around.  He’d seen Mikey, on the edge of the berm under the wind-pump, as they’d driven up, but it had just been a passing glimpse.  He cast his mind back, running each minute through his memory.  “Have you seen Michael?”

“Blondie?  No…” 

“Probably nothing.”  He patted her on the shoulder, reassuringly, but he turned to the CP. 

“Yo, Richmond.  You seen Mike Tyson around?”

“He just went outside to relieve himself.”  Richmond barely looked up from Primary One.  “Said he’d be a while.”

“’Kay.”  He went back to Maggie.  “He’s around.  He just stepped out for a moment.  So yeah, where was I?  Limeys.  And dachshunds.” 

His mind was on Michael, even as his words came out of his mouth.  Michael had been standing on the top of the berm, silhouetted against the bush.  He’d been there when they’d driven up… but try as he might, he couldn’t recall seeing him there after they’d got out of the car.  “They say it’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.  And dachshunds are real small, so they’re just the right dog for SF.”

“They’re snappy little things,” Maggie said. 

“Are they?”  He flexed his memory, felt through his mind’s eye.  No… that berm had been empty after they got out; he’d got a clear view of it when Maggie had stalked back to the Pajero, and he’d have noted Mikey standing there, if he was still there.   “Then I guess a little dog full of bite is the right dog for Section Twenty.  We’re a real small unit.  We’ve got a single hangar in Hereford, and single open-plan office in London.” 

Mikey had been standing on the berm, watching the Pajero when Scott drove up.  And he must have gone off the other side of the berm when Scott got out.

No, back up a minute.  When Scott _and Maggie_ got out.  Maggie, who was a regular shag-buddy.  Michael, who was _not_ …

Michael had stepped out to take a leak, and then didn’t come back inside, because he’d seen something he didn’t want to see.  He’d stepped out for a while, because he was going to stay out there.

“ _I am just going outside, and may be some time,_ ” said Captain Oates, in the depths of Scott’s memory.   

_He had no intention of coming back_.  Scott’s brain whited out with shock. 

He focused his eyes back on Maggie’s face.  She was saying something, but he couldn’t hear her. 

“He just stepped out…!” he croaked, and leaped past her.  He barged through the hanging plastic sheeting, and hammered for the door.  Behind him he heard Maggie squawk in surprise, and Sinclair’s voice call his name, but he ignored them. 

Out through the door and back into the sun, and the glare lanced into his eyes like lasers.  He turned this way and that, but he saw no sign of Mikey anywhere.  The cars were still here, parked in the yard beyond the porch.  Michael wouldn’t have driven off. 

His boots clapped the dirt of the yard.  He pelted past the Pajero, and extended his pace, stretching out in the direction of the wind-pump.  Up, up, up the side of the berm in three paces, and he paused on the top. 

Michael stood with his back turned, in the shadow of the wind-pump, his arms akimbo. 

“Mikey! Yo!” He sprang down the inside of the reservoir and picked himself up into a trot. 

Michael turned at the sound of his voice, and Scott stopped.

He’d seen that look on Michael’s face before, a long way away, under very different circumstances. 

“Mikey,” he said. 

The blank stare, as if he couldn’t see shit through whatever was buzzing in front of his retinas.  The empty face – he _knew_ that look. 

The last time he’d seen that look, Mikey had been full of some sort of drug cocktail pumped into him by an organ-smuggling shit in Kosovo.  He’d been staggering like a zombie, unable to see, unable to make sense of where he was, or what was going on around him.  The same sense-blasted expression was on his face now.  His blue eyes were hollow. 

“Michael,” he said, reaching out and taking a step towards him, raising his hand to plead, but Michael rocked back on his rubbery legs, staring at him as if he was a treacherous hallucination that he no longer trusted.

“Fuck,” he heard Michael say. 

“Michael,” he said, reaching out, but Michael took a step back, and another. 

“Stay away from me,” puffed out from Michael’s lips, as if he had no strength in his stunned chest.  He teetered backward, managed to tack around his own wobbly axis, and walked away. 

Scott stared at his back.  He was moving away and gathering speed.  “Michael!” he called, and followed. 

“Stay away, Scott.” 

“Michael, listen up…”  He followed Michael over the bottom of the reservoir. 

“I don’t want to hear it!”  Michael said, over his shoulder.  “You fucked her!” 

“Look, I’m sorry!” 

“Fuck off with your _sorry!_   _I’m_ sorry I ever trusted you.  What kind of retard am I?  But now you’ve had your fun, so fuck off and leave me alone.”

“Michael, you gotta believe me.”  He reached out and grabbed his elbow.  He hauled Michael around. 

Michael might have been staggering in shock but his muscles reacted with his training.  The fist that blasted back came with such speed that Scott could only begin to duck.  He pulled back just far enough that the blow glanced painfully off his cheekbone without breaking his nose.

“I said _leave me alone!_ ” 

“We gotta talk about this!” 

“I don’t want to talk about this!  Fuck off and leave me alone!”

“Michael!”  He reached out again.  “Look, you’re upset.  I’m a dick.  I didn’t think.” 

“You didn’t think?  You didn’t _think?_ Fuck you, Scott.  And fuck me for believing in you.”  Michael’s words came in a hiss, through teeth clenched so tightly his lips barely moved.  His nostrils were flaring in and out like a racehorse.  He pointed at Scott with a stiff finger.  “Leave me alone.  I never want to talk to you again.”  He turned away. 

“Mikey.” Scott reached out for his arm.    

“ _Leave me alone!_ ” 

This time, the punch came straight for his throat.  He met it with his forearm and turned it aside.  And Michael’s left came up, aimed at his belly, and he blocked that too, and a moment later Michael closed with him, his arms reaching for a hold. 

“Michael!”  He turned inside the hold, breaking the lock before Michael could close it.  He yanked himself backwards. 

Michael turned away.  “I can’t deal with this!  Just leave me alone!” 

“We gotta talk, buddy, we gotta work this out…”  He reached out again, and his fingers closed on the rock-hard bicep.

“I said _LEAVE ME ALONE_!”  Michael swung around to face him, turning around in a half-circle like a battleship engaging, like a tank turret turning to fire in anger.  His arm turned in Scott’s grip and took a fistful of Scott’s shirt and dragged him in to meet his other fist. 

Scott found himself hauled forward into Michael’s grip.  The hand that shot toward him reached like a claw for his face. 

_Shit!_   Scott turned into the swing, ducked under the grip, and aimed his head in a butt into the centre of Michael’s chest.  His weight caught Mikey off balance, and he found himself sprawling to the ground on top of Michael’s body. 

He rolled himself clear.  “Michael…” he said.  He sun-fish-bucked off Michael’s body, and scrambled back up to his feet.   

“I’ll fucking _kill you_!”  Michael raged, rolling.  He caught himself on hands and knees and threw himself like a line-backer at Scott. 

He took the reaching fist, drove it down toward his hip with a sharp yank, pulling Michael off balance.  He swung himself around after Mikey in a sharp pivot, brought his other hand up behind Michael’s trapped elbow, and used Michael’s own shoulder as a fulcrum to take him down.  Michael tipped over and planted face-down into the dirt. 

“Take it easy!” Scott said. 

Michael surged back to his feet, and swung around.  “Fuck you!”  He came back as fast as he’d gone down. 

Scott went down, caving under the lunge.  He felt blows smashing into his ribs, felt pain thud into him.  He bucked under Michael’s weight, flinging his centre of balance over, and in a sharp turn managed to pull himself out from under.  He tried to drag himself to his feet, but a firm grip was on his belt, too much weight in the other direction, and he fell over backward.  Michael was trying to grapple, giving up on smashing for strangling.  

He was seriously trying to do damage.  Those arms weren’t going for a submission hold.  They were going for his arteries, trying to kill him for real.  “I’ll _kill you!_ ”

_Well, well, well, Sergeant Scott_ … said a little voice in his mind. 

He wasn’t fighting; he was defending himself against a madman.  He’d fought madmen before, meth-heads who felt no pain and no fear, he’d fought berserkers before … and if there was one thing Michael _was_ , it was a berserker. 

Well, _this_ time he was going berserk at someone who could take his berserk and repay it.  Not Othmani, not Daisy-boy, not Crawford.  Not a civilian, not a target, but Delta Force, who could take anything the SAS gave him and hand it back.   _Let’s see what happens, Sergeant Scott.  Let’s see what happens when you take this to its limit._  

He rolled wildly, and Michael rolled with him, keeping up his grip on Scott’s throat. 

His face above Scott was purple, his eyes reduced to mad grey glints in suffused sockets.  “I’ll kill you!” 

Scott’s scrabbling fingers dug into the gravel, and he brought up his fist and rubbed his gritty fingers into Michael’s eyes. 

The grip on his throat was gone, and he arched up his back and uncoiled his feet against Michael’s chest.  He was free, and he rolled over and came back up to his feet. 

Michael was coughing wildly, lying on his side. 

Scott stood back.  “Michael?” he asked, suddenly concerned for the pounding Michael’s chest had taken. 

His voice was like an electric shock.  Michael spasmed on the ground and suddenly he was up and moving back in again. 

He closed, fast, his intention to smash out his rage on the nearest human face clear in his eyes.  “I’ll kill you!”

It was surprisingly easy to dodge a berserker, if you didn’t let him close, Scott found.  He ducked, and he wove, and when Michael closed he made sure that he tasted punch for punch, blood for blood.  Michael was intent on smashing, not grappling.  His brain was red with rage, not competition.  Every throw brought him back up; every punch seemed to inflame him, as if he was punching a practice bag that wasn’t cooperating.

Scott felt a fist on his nose, and pain sang out behind his eyeballs.  He lost his balance and Michael had him, and the smashing fists began to slam into his belly.  A moment later Scott had to break out, with a defence far too dangerous for competition.  He rolled away from the next punch, the pain in his nose blazing and sudden nausea hitching at his gut.  He caught a glimpse of the ground beneath him, and bright blood was spattering the gravel, and when he opened his mouth to take a breath he found his throat filled with liquid. 

Fuck! 

He had to end this, whether Mikey liked it or not. 

He let Michael close in, he let Michael reach to grab.  He met the grabbing hand, but instead of blocking it he hauled Michael off balance and down.  He swung around behind Michael's movement, leaning across his trapped elbow, and used Mikey’s own arm to send him to the ground in another straight-arm take-down.  Mikey hit the ground, hard, flat on his chest. 

Michael threw out his arms and flipped himself over onto his back with a wordless roar, but Scott was already moving.  He caught Michael’s raised left arm mid-turn, and hauled it up against himself.  Even as Michael was moving to roll back up to his feet Scott stepped over his body, put his other boot next to Michael’s head, and let himself fall backward with Michael’s arm against his chest. 

He landed on his back with a thump, but he had Michael’s arm locked against his chest, and Michael’s body trapped below his legs.  His left leg was over Michael’s chest, and the other was over his throat, and Michael’s left arm was locked between Scott’s knees.  He stretched himself out on his back, Michael’s fingers close to his collar.  Michael was trapped, pinned on his back. 

“Mikey!” he called.  

It took Michael a moment to realize that he was trapped, and Scott felt the shudder of rage in his body.  Michael couldn’t twist himself free without his arm, and he couldn’t free his arm with his elbow locked tightly against Scott’s chest, and he couldn’t roll himself to unlock his elbow with his body pressed away by the pressure of Scott’s legs. 

He was stuck. 

He roared.  His knees rolled up, thrashing at Scott.  He kicked, in an attempt to roll himself free, but Scott’s left leg lay over his chest, snug, and Michael’s knees thumped harmlessly off Scott’s thigh. 

“Whoa, there,” Scott called.  “Take it easy, dumbass, I’ve got you.” 

Michael shrieked with rage and rolled the other way, and his legs kicked. 

Scott hadn’t wanted to haul Michael’s arm all the way back, but Michael thrashed with all his strength, trying to haul his arm free between Scott’s knees.  Scott lifted his hips off the ground, and Michael’s roar of rage turned into a sudden keen of pain as his elbow was stretched painfully back. 

“Take it easy, Mikey!” 

Mikey seemed to relax and the roar stopped.  Scott let his hips drop, unwilling to hurt him a second longer than he had to, but no sooner had he relaxed than Michael thrashed again. 

“Let me go!”  he howled from under Scott. 

“Not until you calm down, so take it easy.” 

That wasn’t what Michael wanted to hear.  “Fuck _you!_ ”  he howled.  “Let me go, let me _go!_ ” 

His right arm came up, reaching across his body, but Scott pinched his knees together, protecting his genitals.  Michael’s fist battered at his legs, furiously, so Scott simply raised his hips again. 

Another keen of pain.  He relaxed, but again Michael switched back to roaring and thrashing. 

Michael’s boots were kicking up gravel, scraping the desert dust up in a cloud that showered down on Scott.  He roared, his anger like a trumpet, but his head was stuck under Scott’s right leg.  He thrashed, madly.  He could thrash his body about as much as he liked, but Scott’s weight kept his shoulder and arm planted as solidly as if a tree had grown on it.

“Mikey, give it up, boy, give it up, take it easy.” 

He could hold Michael here all afternoon, but it seemed that Michael was getting tired.  He was still roaring, still shaking with violent feeling, but his thrashing was growing weaker, less directed.  And Scott was still bleeding.  He could taste the blood in his mouth.  He turned his head and spat, hawking a mouthful of drool and blood onto the gravel. 

“Take it easy, Mikey, I’ve got you, I can keep you here all day, take it easy, take it easy…” 

Michael was shaking.  His knees hitched up, digging the ground, kicking at it as if it could free him.  Scott could feel his head turning against his leg.  “Let me go!” 

“I’m not letting you go, I’ve got you, I’m not letting you up till you calm down, take it easy…” 

The roar had no words.  Michael’s legs gave a final heave against the ground, scraping up another cloud of gravel.  His back arched, trying to drag himself free in a final monumental explosion of power. 

“I’ve got you, take it easy…” 

And then he sagged.  His head turned under Scott’s leg.  His free arm came up and took a fistful of Scott’s jeans cuff.  And he screamed. 

_Screamed_ , with all his strength, as if he could free himself with sheer noise.  Scott could feel his body shaking under him.  Michael took in a deep breath, and there was a moment of silence, and then he screamed again.  His whole body bowed up off the ground with the effort of producing all that noise.  His fist unclenched from Scott’s jeans and pounded against his knee. 

“Jesus Christ,” Scott muttered, shocked. 

_“What the fuck?”_

The voice came from behind him.  He recognised Richmond’s voice. 

He arched his neck back to look.  Richmond, Maggie and Sinclair were on the top of the berm, looking down. 

He could see the picture in their expressions.  Damien Scott, filthy and blood-smeared, on top of Michael Stonebridge, who was not only _not_ tapping out but screaming his head off like a two-year-old. 

Although Michael had stopped screaming.  The noise had been replaced by a heavy gulping panting. 

“Go away!” Scott yelled at them, angry, and embarrassed for Michael.  “Haven’t you ever seen a man having a nervous breakdown before?” 

“What are you _doing?_ ”  Richmond started down the inside of the berm.  “You’re hurting him, why aren’t you letting …”

Michael rolled his head under Scott’s leg.  Scott felt his body tense under him, and his back arch. 

##  _“ **GO AWAY!** ”_

The bellow came out with all the strength of Sergeant Stonebridge’s parade-ground lungs.  It was a blast of sound, but there was a wrongness in his voice, a hoarse note under the roar, which told Scott, quite suddenly, that Michael was crying. 

Michael Stonebridge was _crying_. 

Richmond pulled up, startled; taken aback either by Michael's voice or something on his face Scott could not see. 

“Give us a minute!”  Scott said, urgently. 

“O- _kaaay_ ,” Maggie said, slowly.  They retreated from sight. 

Michael slumped against the ground again.  He was shaking.  His big chest was racked by tremors, and occasionally punctuated by spasms that might have been sobs. 

“Take it easy, buddy,” Scott said, to the sky.  He was still pinning Michael down, still holding Michael’s arm, but the fingers that had been clawed into a fist were relaxed.  “Take it easy, buddy, I’m not letting you go…” 

Michael turned his head away.  He didn’t try to reclaim his arm. 

He simply lay there, on his side, trapped; and for the first time since Kerry Stonebridge’s death, her husband cried. 

“Take it easy, buddy,” Scott said.  “Let it out.  It’s okay.  Let it out.” 

It didn’t last as long as Scott would have thought.  The snuffles and sobs died away. 

Michael lay still, and Scott waited.

After a few minutes,  “I’m sorry,” Michael said, and Scott could hear the thickness in this voice. 

“You okay?” Scott asked. 

“Not really.” 

“Can I let you up, or will you try to kill me again?” 

“Er…”

That wasn’t a _yes,_ but it wasn’t a _no_ either.  It sounded like an _I don’t know_ … and then Scott recognised it as _I’d rather stay here but I don’t know how to ask_.  He had been about to let the arm go, but instead he resigned himself to waiting. 

The ground under Michael’s back had to be as hard as the ground under Scott’s, and the sun had to be just as bright in his eyes, but he wasn’t making any move to free himself.  He just lay flat, his chest shaking, and Scott could hear his thick breathing, and the small snuffles of his blocked nose. 

 “Feeling better?”

“I don’t know.”

He didn’t _know?_   How did he not know what he was feeling?  They were _his_ feelings.  Scott didn’t know what was going on inside that blond head – but then again, Michael was at last crying; at last.  If a few bruises were what it cost Scott to get Michael to feel _something, anything_ , he was willing to pay it. 

Michael sniffed; a soggy snort, clearing his airway as much as his nose.  “I think I’m going mad.”

“You’re not going mad.  You just can’t cope.”

“I’m losing my mind!  I want to kill Hanson but I want to die, I can’t sleep and I’ve been having flashbacks and I keep dreaming about the Kill House and I don't know how to make it stop!  And now there’s you, and there’s _her_ , and I want to see Kerry again and I’m gay and I’m not Duncan Brown! There’s just too much!  I can’t _deal_ with this any more!” 

Who the fuck was Duncan Brown?  But now was not the time to ask.  “Easy, Mikey, I’ve got you.”

“I want to shoot myself,” Michael said, in a new tone of voice. There was a note of _smallness_ in that voice that shocked Scott. 

“Don’t do that!”  Scott snapped.  Jesus, where was the fucker’s gun?  Scott turned his head to look for it… but if Michael had still had it on him, he’d have grabbed it out and shot at Scott.  Maybe he’d dropped it? The brush was too thick to see if a handgun was lying on the dirt.

 “I didn’t!” Michael said.  “But I wanted to.  I nearly did.  I wanted to, Scott, I wanted to die.  I nearly let them shoot me in Taljaard.  I still want to die.  Oh _God_ …”  The shaking came again, reinvigorated, as if it had never slowed at all. 

Scott lay on his back, aware that the blood was beginning to clot inside his nose, but also aware that Michael didn’t want him to let go. 

“Next time you think about offing yourself you come to me and you tell me, okay?” Scott demanded, urgently.  “I’ll talk you out of it.” 

“No,” Michael said.  His head turned.  “I wanted to.  I’ve never wanted anything so much. I might want it again. If I want it again, it’s the talking out of it that I won’t come to you for.”

“So why didn’t you do it?”

“I don’t know.”  Michael’s back arched under Scott’s legs.  “I don’t know anything any more!  I can’t cope anymore.  And now there’s _her_.  I thought everything was okay, but it wasn’t, there’s _her_.  There’s _her_.”

“I’m sorry,” Scott said. 

“It’s too much.  I can’t deal with this.” 

“You are going to get through this,” Scott said.  “You’re going to win this.  I promise you that.  I _know_ you.  You’re wounded, but you’re a fighter.” 

Michael sniffed, heavily. 

“You cheated on me,” he said.    

And _there_ was the sticking point.  He hadn’t even given Michael a passing thought, when he’d known perfectly well Michael was the jealous type, who didn’t play the field, and didn’t share.  He’d acted like a jerk, and the shame of it tasted sour.  

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t think.”

“You didn’t _think_ ,” Michael said, bitterly. 

“Sorry.” 

“I think I want my arm back now.” 

“Okay.”  He released Michael’s arm. 

Michael took his arm back.  He didn't get up, just reeled his arm in, bending one joint at a time as if it were a derrick.  He folded the arm in against his chest, and then folded himself around it to lie on his side. 

Scott sat up and took his legs away. 

Michael lay on his side.  No longer crying; just curled up as if he was preparing to sleep out here in the sun.  He looked very young to Scott, suddenly; young and bruised, and very lost.  His eyes were red and puffy. 

Scott took out his Kleenex, and started wiping the blood from his own face. 

Michael sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees.  He gazed at the ground, as if he was turning his own words over in his head, as if they were a surprise to him. 

“I’m sorry about all that,” Michael muttered. 

“Don’t,” Scott said.  “I’m the one who should apologise.”

“Yes, you should.”  Michael’s voice was hard and flat, giving him no leeway.  Whatever softness there had been a moment ago had dried up. 

“I’m sorry, buddy.  I acted like a douche, and I’m sorry.  Can we be friends again?” Scott asked. 

“No.” 

That was said flatly, without any room for negotiation.

 

* * *

 

For Stonebridge, the rest of the day passed as if in a dream. 

Richmond gave him a glass, and told him to drink it.  It was sugar-water, but only after he’d downed it did it occur to him that she might have put something extra into it.  Something to ‘settle his nerves.’

If there was, it wasn’t helping.

He didn’t know whether to turn off his feelings and buckle down to work, or to just abandon his willpower and collapse altogether.  It had been easy to collapse, with Scott pinning him down.  With Scott pinning him down, there had been nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, except to collapse.  It had been the easy outlet, the safe outlet, and he’d grabbed it and vented all his hatred down that outlet. 

And he’d felt better for it, afterward, for a while. 

But after Scott let him up, he still had a job to do.  He couldn’t just collapse inside the Crib itself, with everyone watching.  He had a reputation to consider…

… A _broken_ reputation, obviously.  They’d all heard him from the Crib, and his performance must have been picked up by the Crib’s cameras.  They’d all seen him fall apart and have a tantrum like a child.

His professional competence was a façade.  It was a pretence, and they all knew it was a pretence.  One moment he wanted to let go the pretence, abandon the effort, and then a second later he wanted to prop up the pretence and soldier on as if his embarrassing outburst outside had been the aberration.  He wobbled between the lure of high emotion, and the frantic need to hide that emotion behind a professional face.

He couldn’t pull his mind together, but nor could he just throw himself over to the emotional woo-woos in front of all of them.

He couldn’t tell if his wobbly thoughts were his own, or the product of a drug in the sugar-water.  It might have been a drug, or it might have been the after-effect of his outburst, the result of adrenalin and trauma.  He found himself unable to shepherd his mind or focus his thoughts along any one train for more than a few minutes.  Too much was going on in his mind.  After a while, he gave up on pretending to work at all.  He brooded quietly over his keyboard, staring at the F-keys. 

The rest of the team was focused on the job.  They had a lead, at least, and they were working on it without him. 

A Candid was a big plane.  You could carry a lot of cargo in a plane that big, and a lot of the smaller commercial shippers didn’t ask very many questions, particularly about cargoes that came from out of the way places and went to other out of the way places. 

Richmond and Baxter were digging away, trying to uncover a link between Conrad Knox and Vastrap, or a link between Conrad Knox and this particular plane, or a link between Knox and any of the landowners around the old air base. 

Scott was digging away at something else; Sinclair was making an endless succession of calls.  Dalton was pacing.  Maggie was watching, and occasionally asking questions, and occasionally taking pictures.  Each and every picture had Dalton getting up and coming over to demand a look at her camera’s screen. 

Nobody, nobody at all, pressed conversation on Stonebridge.  Richmond tried, at first, but even as a child he had mastered the art of setting his face in a solid mould and giving nothing away in his words. She gave up, soon enough. He was left to his own thoughts, which was the way he wanted to be. 

He’d been betrayed, and worst of all, he’d been made a fool of.  He would never be able to regain his dignity.  He might be able to live with it, but his façade was cracked.

Scott had wriggled his way in, and broken down all his defences, and Stonebridge had let him.  Like an idiot, he’d been _happy_ to let him.

It was hard not to hate Maggie Montroe for what Scott had done.  Every time he looked at her, he felt his jaw tighten and the sourness rise in his throat.  But he was aware of his face, and he glanced away every time, unwilling to display his hatred so openly. 

Scott’s 'media contact.'  He’d had the new relationship explained to him. 

Scott’s fuck-buddy, Scott’s fellow American, a woman who knew Scott well enough to know that when he was being prepped for emergency surgery, the most important of his personal effects was not his clothes, his phone, his watch, or even his gun; but the leather Paracord bracelet around his wrist.  He never took it off for more than a few minutes at a time, but only someone who knew him well would know why.  It had been the last gift given to him by his nieces before he went off to war; a present to help keep Uncle Damien safe in Iraq. 

It was hard not to hate her for her knowledge of Scott, as much as for his own knowledge of what Scott had done with her. 

“Ma’am,” Richmond said, sitting back, breaking into the silence. “I’ve got something here.” 

They all looked up, Stonebridge noticed.  Dalton was behind Richmond in a moment.  “Put it up,” she ordered. 

Stonebridge got up and walked over, if only to demonstrate that he hadn’t checked out of the team altogether.  He stood as far from Scott as he could while still being in sight of the main screen.

“Ava Knox has been in phone contact with a Roman Catholic church in Keimoes,” Richmond said.   “But only over the last few days.” 

“Keimoes?” Dalton asked. 

“Keimoes is further downriver.”  Richmond pulled up the satellite map of the area.  The green ribbon of the river etched its way horizontally across the screen.  Richmond zoomed out from Vastrap, north of the river, swept across the map to the west, and then zoomed in again on a loop in the green ribbon.  “It’s in the opposite direction to Vastrap.  But it’s a link.”

“ _Weak_ link,” Scott said.  “And a Catholic church?  What, are we suspecting nuns now?” 

“If there’s _anything_ we’re sure of about Nostromo,” Dalton said, “it’s the fact that Knox is selling it as a philanthropy project. Nuns are a possibility.”

“Still hard to know what a Catholic church can offer Nostromo,” Scott said. "I'm Catholic; or I _was._ Missiles weren't in my Catechism."

“Any recordings of the conversations?” Dalton asked.

“No, ma’am.  The calls were made from Ava’s financial consultant’s phone, not her own.  I’ve put a trace on it since then.”

“Too much of a coincidence,” Dalton said.  “So, my instinct was right.  Ava Knox is mixed up with her father’s plan right up to her pretty little neck.”

Richmond pulled up a picture of the church, and the conversation went on, even as Stonebridge found himself falling out of focus with their words. 

Ava Knox… his mind went back.

It had only been a few days since he’d last seen her, and yet… he’d travelled a thousand kilometres, he’d been in combat, he’d had his first gay encounter, he’d been cheated on, and he’d almost shot himself.  The luxurious house with the dachshunds seemed as simple as a child’s game. 

The dachshunds… he’d printed out a picture of a dachshund in front of the American flag and stuck it to Scott’s locker, just to see Scott’s reaction.  _That_ joke had fallen excruciatingly, soul-destroyingly _flat._  

He got up and walked out.  He went outside to the porch and sat down heavily on the edge. 

Pain, pain, pain. 

And he couldn’t even get on the phone, and call Kerry, and complain to her about Scott.  Kerry was gone.

The pain surged, taking him by surprise, and he felt something inside himself crumble under its impact.  The tears came out, a flood so sudden that he had no time to clench his jaw against them.  Kerry… no more Kerry… he would never be able to share his private hurts with her again…

The tears bubbled up in him, and he pressed his fingers against his eyes and gave himself over to them.   

He couldn’t even share his pain about Kerry with Scott.  He’d talked about Scott to Kerry; he’d talked about Kerry to Scott.  But Scott and Kerry were both gone from him; both beyond conversation.  He was utterly, utterly lost. 

There was no room in him to contain all this pain, nowhere to squash it down too, and no reason to squash it down any longer.  The façade was gone.  He buried his face in his hands, and wept like he had not wept since he was twelve. 

 

* * *

 

Maggie Montroe’s contact never came to pick her up that night, for which Scott was sorry.  Smashing some shit out of some bad guys sounded therapeutic right now.

Scott and Richmond went out to the place where Maggie was supposed to meet him, but although they sat there watching for two hours before the meeting time, and another two hours after, no-one showed up.  The dark parking lot stayed empty.  Nothing moved in all the time they sat there but a cat, wandering along like a green ghost in the glow of the night-vision goggles. 

It would have been a neat-o intel scoop, Scott thought, if one of Pavel Arnisimov’s bad boys toddled over under his own steam and handed himself over to Section 20.  It might even have gone some way to leavening the atmosphere in the Crib.  Disapproval was being glared in his direction from everyone from Sinclair down to the cicadas. 

“What the heck did you _do,_ Scott?” Richmond asked, deep in the brush where they’d been lying up, watching Maggie’s rendezvous point.   

“It’s none of your business,” he replied, hiding his face behind the night-vision goggles and staring across the parking lot. 

“It _is_ my business if one of my team-mates is going to fall apart,” she said.  “What the hell was all that screaming?”

“Michael’s in a real bad place right now.” 

“No kidding, Captain Obvious,” she said.  “You know, he was crying earlier?  I’ve _never_ seen him cry before… not even at Kerry’s funeral.”

He lowered the goggles and looked at her.  Without them, her face was opaque in the dark, a smear of pallor.

 “I fucked up,” he admitted.  “I did something stupid, and he’s so fragile at the moment he’s not taking it well.” 

“Huh,” she’d said. 

She let the matter drop then, but she had hardly anything to say to him after that.  Their shared OP had been one of the most silent he’d ever had.  He found himself missing Michael’s presence. 

After waiting a couple of hours, they left, and drove back to the Crib. 

He followed Richmond back into the Crib, un-strapping his body armour.  “No dice,” he said.  “They didn’t show up.” 

“We must have spooked them,” Sinclair said. 

“If they were even real contacts to begin with,” Maggie said, joining in the conversation.  “Not the first time I’ve had some guy with a hot story suddenly chicken out, when he realized he’d have to come up with something solid.” 

Michael was still sitting in the corner, lost in the glomp-swamps.  He looked up as Scott walked over to him.  “Come and help me smoke a cigarette?” Scott invited. 

He saw the corners of Michael’s lips pleat down in rejection, even before he spoke.  “No, thank you,” Michael said, politely but implacably. 

“Okay,” Scott said, “No sweat.” 

He sat down in the nearest chair, close to Michael without pushing himself on Michael.  He was as close to Michael as he could get, while being out of Michael's punching range.

The sour feeling in the Crib seemed to hang like a cloud.  And he had it coming, too.  He’d fucked up, big-time.  The only reason no-one had taken it outside with him was that while they all knew _something_ had happened between him and Michael, nobody was quite sure what that something _was._  

All they knew, it seemed, was that Damien Scott was an asshole.  Again.

He didn’t give a shit about Lady Macbeth’s opinion of him, since his opinion of _her_ was somewhere level with his opinion of Lavrentiy Beria.  But Sinclair had spent much of the afternoon examining Michael closely. He'd looked at Michael, where he sat as if in his own world, and then looked at Scott with an expression that seemed as much puzzled as annoyed. _That_ stung. 

He wanted to defend himself to Sinclair, far more than anyone else.  He respected Sinclair – and not just because the Major had drawn a line in the sand and then popped Scott on the nose when he’d stepped over it.  He wanted to say, “ _I didn’t mean it!  I was trying to help him! I didn’t mean to fuck him over even worse!_ ” 

But that was the lesson of blow-back:  the path to hell was paved with good intentions.  He’d fucked up, and now he had to deal with it.  And he’d have to deal with it without Mikey meeting him half-way.  Mikey wouldn’t even meet his eye; just ground his teeth and stared past him as if he was standing at attention in front of an officer he didn't like. 

“Major?” Baxter said.  “I think I’ve found something.” 

Scott swivelled the chair around.  There was a note of urgency in Baxter’s voice that said he hadn’t just found another insect in his coffee. 

“What is it?”  Dalton asked. 

On the other side of the Crib, Sinclair and Maggie were getting up and coming over as well. 

“Pavel Arnisimov’s phone just turned on and then off again,” Baxter said.  

“Where?” 

Maggie snapped a photograph of Baxter’s intent face.  He ignored her.  “Tracking… the phone towers here are spread out … triangulating the signal…”

“Any time now, Sergeant…”

“Got it… Putting the coordinates across now.”

The satellite map appeared on the main screen.  The soil was dusky red.  “The signal came from this area.  Either on this road _here_ , or on _this_ farm…”  Baxter zoomed in closer, “here.” 

It was a cluster of buildings surrounded by thin trees.  A road wound its way into the centre, the artery for a network of random tracks that criss-crossed the plot like capillaries.  There was a splatter of tar in the centre, and a brace of broad flat roofs, and the ground was studded with trees.  There were no cars parked anywhere in sight. 

“What are we looking at here?” 

Sinclair sat down at Primary One and aimed the map coordinates at the Crib’s software.  It did its thing, and a moment later Sinclair read off.  “Old sheep farm. Property of … well, it’s out of business, but the land it’s _on_ is owned by Van Rensburg Shipping Company.”

“A shipping company that owns a sheep farm?  Who owns Van Rensburg?”

“Masiphumelele Holdings…”

“Masiphumelele Holdings…” Baxter muttered.  “Why does that ring a bell?”  He bent to his computer, but Scott spoke up. 

“Masiphumelele Holdings was in the pile of papers Ava Knox gave us.  It’s not one of Knox’s companies.  If I remember right…”  Scott rubbed at his beard and frowned.  He _knew_ he remembered right; but people tended to disbelieve him if remembering seemed too easy.  “It’s held by a bunch of cousins and wives of government officials…” 

“Cousins and wives?” Dalton said. 

“That’s the way it goes, here,” Sinclair said. 

“It’s basically a holding company for politician’s money.  Wifey owns the company, dear husband arranges the sale… or vice versa.  The politician has the name and the signing power, and his family holds the title deeds and gets the other end of the transaction.” 

“Joseph Dreyer?”

“He’s not listed as a shareholder…” Sinclair said, reading off the screen.  “But… he’ll be on first name terms with the people who are.  Politicians…”

“This picture isn’t real-time,” Dalton said.  “Get me a real-time picture of that place, people.” 

“I’m on it.” Baxter said. 

“This could be the break we need.” 

“Dude just _happened_ to turn his phone on, and then off again?”  Scott asked.  “Doesn’t that strike anyone as kinda hinky?”

“He made a quick phone call to Ava Knox.  We have that call.” 

“Play it.”  Dalton folded her arms to listen.

It was Ava’s voice.  “ _Hello. Ava Knox_.”

“ _Miss Knox, are you still in_ _Cape Town_ _?_ ” 

The chill ran down Scott’s back.  Pavel Arnisimov was alive and kicking.  Scott had held onto a wish that he or Mikey had shot his ass up in Taljaard, but there he was. 

“ _Yes… who’s speaking?_ ” 

“ _My name is Pavel Arnisimov.  I have the message for you.  Section Twenty is killing civilians_.” 

“ _Oh, they_ are, _are they?_ ”  Ava Knox’s voice changed, from polite enquiry to silky steel.  It was hard to judge if it signalled satisfaction or cynicism. 

“ _Is the fact, and the fact is that they have no place here, interfering with your father’s work.  That is the message_.” 

“ _And are_ you _aware that Section Twenty is probably listening to us as we speak?_ ” Ava said.  Her voice was almost a purr.  “ _It wasn’t very wise of you to call me on this number._ ” 

Arnisimov didn’t reply.  The line cut out. 

“ _That_ was short and sweet.”  Dalton said, cynically. 

“She spooked him.  He didn’t think we’d be watching her.”

“Ma’am,” Baxter said.  “Our satellite passed over the spot earlier this evening.  We’ve got an image in the sweep.” 

“Put it up, then.” 

The image was dark, and then Baxter applied the filters to it and the details came up.  It was the same plot of ground… but now there was a cluster of pale blobs spread out across the grounds – the heat signatures of human beings – and four blocky structures clustered at the mouth of the parking lot. 

Scott hissed and sat forward.  He opened his mouth to speak, but Baxter was already clicking.  “Length of those… forty feet, estimated.”

_Shipping containers._  

There was no sign of the four trucks that had carried them.  They may have been inside the broad hangar-like farm buildings … but the shipping containers had served their purpose, and had been abandoned. 

“Midway between Vastrap and Taljaard,” Baxter said.  “Big enough roofs to store anything you want to, no nosy neighbours.  You could hide an army there.  Or a missile base.”  

“Camp B,” Dalton finished.  “ _That’s_ where the fuel and the missiles are coming together.  The Okas are in one of those buildings.” 

“My guess would be, yes,” Sinclair said, with satisfaction. 

“Take them out, tonight?”  Stonebridge suggested. 

Dalton walked around the front of the computers and stared up at the main screen like a director examining B-roll.  Her back was to Scott, but he could see her tension in the line of her spine.  “They’re wide awake at the moment.  We’ll take them out just before dawn.  Everybody, get some rest.  We’re rolling out of here at three a.m.” 


End file.
